Haeckel (Ernst)
Original title: Haeckel (Ernesto)
Ernst Haeckel was a German biologist who visited Madeira in 1866 and wrongly claimed that the Porto Santo rabbit was a species distinct from the European rabbit.
German biologist, born in 1834 and died on 10 August 1919. He was in Madeira in 1866, and in his Natural History of Creation he deals with the Porto Santo (‘holy harbour’) rabbit, regarding it as a species distinct from the European rabbit. On p. 283 of this Elucidário we have already had occasion to say that this opinion has not the slightest foundation. We must now add that the doctrines of the learned professor of the University of Jena are discredited among all men of science, Professor Yves Delage going so far as to declare that they are nothing but ‘an execrable hotchpotch, unworthy of the naturalists of our time’.
- Ernst Haeckel 1834–1919
- Yves Delage