Richard Sternfeld

Richard Sternfeld (8 February 1884 in Bielefeld – 1943 in Auschwitz) was a German-Jewish herpetologist, who was responsible for describing over forty species of amphibians and reptiles, particularly from Germany's African and Pacific colonies (i.e. modern-day Tanzania, Cameroon, Togo, Namibia and Papua New Guinea).

Sternfeld was the son of a merchant in Bielefeld, North Rhine-Westphalia. He was educated in a local gymnasium and initially entered university in 1903 to study medicine at Freiburg, but he switched to studying natural science at Bonn. In 1907 he returned to Freiburg, to obtain his Dr. Phil., with a dissertation on the biology of mayflies under the guidance of evolutionary biologist August Weismann.

Sternfeld's first appointment was alongside herpetologist Gustav Tornier at the Zoological Museum at the University of Berlin. He worked on the herpetofaunas of the German colonies in Africa and the Southwest Pacific, producing 26 titles in 6.5 years. In 1913 he moved to the Senckenberg Museum at Frankfurt to replace herpetologist Philipp Lehrs, and widened his geographical area of interest to include Central Africa, Japan, Australia, the Pacific Islands, and South America.

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