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Pieter Bleeker was a
DutchThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
medical doctor and
ichthyologistIchthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish. This includes skeletal fish , cartilaginous fish , and jawless fish...
, famous for his work on the fishes of
East AsiaEast Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
–
Atlas Ichthyologique des Orientales Neerlandaises – which was published 1862–1877.
He was employed as a medical officer in the Dutch East Indian Army from 1842 to 1860, stationed in
IndonesiaIndonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
. During that time, he did most of his
ichthyologyIchthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish. This includes skeletal fish , cartilaginous fish , and jawless fish...
work, besides his duties in the army. Many of his specimens he got from local fishermen, but he also built up an extended network of contacts who would send him specimens from various government outposts throughout the islands.
During his time in Indonesia, he collected well over 12000 specimens, many of which are today at the Natural History Museum in
Leiden.
Subsequent to his return to the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
in 1860, he started publishing his
Altlas Ichthyologique, a comprehensive account of his studies done in Indonesia with over 1500 illustrations. It was published in 36 volumes between 1862 and Bleeker's death in 1878, and has been republished by the Smithsonian between 1977 and 1983 in 10 volumes.
Bleeker published more than 500 papers on ichthyology, describing 511 new
generaIn biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
and 1925 new
speciesIn biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
.