Natterer, Johann Baptist b. November 9, 1787; Laxenburg,Austria d.June 17, 1843; Laxenburg,Austria
Austrian natural scientist and member of the Austrian expedition to Brazil in 1817. Natterer’s father was a falconer and taxidermist at the summer residence of the Austrian emperor in Laxenburg.
He taught his son the art of taxidermy, and in 1806 Johann Natterer was appointed administrator of the imperial bird and mammal collection. In this role he traveled through the Austro-Hungarian territories to catch native birds and bring them back to Vienna. In 1816 he acquired a position as assistant at the Imperial Natural History Museum in Vienna. A year later he was chosen as a member of the Austrian expedition that was to accompany the future empress of Brazil, Leopoldine. Although Baron Metternich suggested Natterer as the scientific leader of the expedition, precedence was given to Johann Christian Mikan, professor of natural history at the University of Prague, which caused conflict from the very beginning. Natterer and Mikan were accompanied by Johann B. Emanuel Pohl (1782—1834), a mineralogist and botanist; Johann Buchberger (? —1821) and Thomas Ender (1793—1875), both artists; and the Italian natural scientist Joseph Raddi (1770—1829); as well as the Bavarian botanist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Mar- tius (1794—1868) and his countryman, the zoologist Johann Baptist von Spix (1781—1826). In Brazil the scientists split into three groups. While the expedition leader, Mikan, and some others returned to Europe in 1818, Natterer remained in Brazil with his companion, the hunter Dominik Sochor (? —1826). In ten long journeys he explored the country for eighteen years, longer than any other member of the expedition, repeatedly refusing to obey commands from Vienna to return. At first he stayed in the coastal region near Rio de Janeiro, then in Sao Paulo. In 1824 he traveled through Goias to Mato Grosso, where he spent four and a half years. In mid-1829 Natterer traveled north to the Amazon basin. He reached the river Amazon via the Rio Guapore and the Rio Madeira, traveled along the Rio Negro as far as the Venezuelan border, and reached the Rio Casiquiare. From 1831 to 1834 he traveled along the Rio Branco, and in 1835 he visited the province of Para, before sailing for Europe from Para (Belem).The enormous natural history and ethnological collections that he brought to Europe included 1,146 mammals, 12,293 birds, 1,678 amphibians and reptiles, 32,825 insects, 1,024 mollusks, 242 packets of seed samples, 430 minerals, and 1,492 ethnographical objects (Riedl-Dorn 2000, 54). Natterer’s collections and watercolors housed in Vienna are one of the most important sources for Brazilian natural history.
Heinz Peter Brogiato
See also Brazil; Martius, Carl Friedrich
Philipp von
References and Further Reading
Henze, Dietmar. Enzyklopadie der Entdecker undErforscher der Erde. Vol. III. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1986, p. 591.
Hoppe, Brigitte. “Natterer, Johann.” In Neue Deutsche Biographie. Vol. 18. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1997, pp. 754—755.
Riedl-Dorn, Christa. Johann Natterer und die Osterreichische Brasilienexpedition. Petropolis: Editora Index, 2000.