Othenio Abel
| Othenio Abel | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
June 20, 1875 Vienna |
| Died | July 4, 1946 (aged 71) Mondsee |
| Residence | Austria |
| Fields | |
| Notable awards |
Bigsby Medal (1911) Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal (1920) |
Othenio Lothar Franz Anton Louis Abel (Vienna, June 20, 1875 – Mondsee, Upper Austria, July 4, 1946) was an Austrian paleontologist and evolutionary biologist. Together with Louis Dollo, he was the founder of paleobiology and studied the life and environment of fossilized organisms.
Abel was born in Vienna, the son of Professor Lothar Abel. Abel earned a PhD, after studying both law and science, from the University of Vienna. He remained there as an assistant to Alpine geologist Eduard Suess, before being appointed a professor of paleontology. Three years later, he finished his habilitation thesis as a paleontologist at the University of Vienna. From 1900 to 1907, he worked at the Geologische Reichsanstalt.
In 1907, Abel became an extraordinary professor in Vienna, and from 1917 to 1934 he was a regular professor of paleontology in Vienna. As such, he led several expeditions that gave him broad recognition, such as the Pikermi-expedition to Greece in 1912, an American expedition (1925) and one to South Africa (1929).
Abel became a member of the Leopoldina academy in 1934. From 1935 to 1940, he was a professor at Göttingen University, after which he was retired, age 61. In 1942, he was appointed an honorary member of the Paläontologische Gesellschaft.
Abel mainly studied fossil vertebrates. He still saw evolution in a largely Lamarckian way. His main contribution to the field, however, was the formulation, together with Louis Dollo, of paleobiology, which combines the methods and findings of the natural science biology with the methods and findings of the earth science paleontology. From 1928 onwards, Othenio Abel was the publisher of a journal dedicated to paleobiology, Paläobiologica.
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