The Auk 109(4):907-908, 1992
IN MEMORIAM: HANS EDMUND WOLTERS, 1915-1991
KARL-L. SCHUCHMANN • and Walter J. Bock 2•
ZoologischFeos rschungsinstiutuntd M useumA . KoenigA, denaueralle1e5 0-164,D(W)-5300 Bonn1 , FederalR epublico f Germanya;
2nd Departmenotf BiologicaSlc ienceCs,o lumbiUa niversityN, ew York 10027,USA
Wolters Hans Edmund was born on 11 February 1915 in Duisburg in the German Ruhr
region. He spent his childhood in Geilenkirchen near the frontier town Aachen. After World
War II, he worked some years as a school teacher before becoming,i n 1960,a n associatem ember
of the Alexander Koenig Zoological Research Institute and Museum, Bonn, volunteering in
the Department of Ornithology. In 1966, Hans Wolters was appointed curator and later chiefcurator
of birds. In 1973, he became head of the Department of Ornithology after the sudden death of Professor Giinther Niethammer. Between 1974 and 1979 Hans Wolters edited the
Alexander Koenig Institute's journals Bonner zoologiscBhei tr•igaen d Bonnezro ologiscMheo nographien.
After his retirement in 1980, Hans Wolters continued to be a permanent and appreciatedc
ollaboratoro f the Departmento f Ornithology.Dr. Wolters died on 22 December 1991.
Dr. Wolters's cientificin terestf ocusedo n systematicsb, oth on the specifica nd supraspecific
relations of bird taxa (especially the latter). He studied in detail many families in the Passeriformes,
primarily the Estrildidae, Ploceidae and Nectariniidae. Hans Wolters was among the first
Europeano rnithologistsw ho applied cladistic principles for the reconstruction of avian phylogeny.
His ideas of a "natural" system of birds are reflected in his major work Die Vogelarten der Erde (The Bird Taxa of the World), published between 1975 and 1982. In his opinion, however, this treatise should have been published somey earsl ater, becauseh e couldn ot fully take into account Sibley and Ahlquist's studies on DNA-DNA hybridization, work that he admired greatly. Although Wolters' book is not well known in North America, it is probably the most useful single-volume checklist of birds and is especially valuable as a source book for older names in avian nomenclature. Dr. Wolters used a sequence for orders and families of birds quite different from that in Peters' Check-list, and a cladistic approach as far as possible. He resistedv, ery sensibly,c oining many new subgeneric names for these taxa recognized in his classificationI.n 1983, Wolters published" Die
V/3gel Europas im System der V/3gel" as a checklist of European birds, in which he made a number
of modifications of his earlier classification. Becauseo f his profound taxonomick nowledge of birds and of avian nomenclature, he was an elected member of the Standing Committee on Ornithological Nomenclature of the International Ornithological Committee in 1982, and served as a most valued member of that committee until his death.
The University of Bonn honored Hans Walters with the title doctor honoris causa in 1971; the German Ornithological Society" (DO-G) elected him an Honorary Member in 1988; and he was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union in 1982 and an Honorary Fellow in 1991.
Hans Walters had close contacts with a large numbero f ornithologiststh roughoutt he world.
He generously shared his extensive scientific knowledge and freely gave his advice to colleagues
and students. With Hans Edmund Walters many of us have lost a friend, and German
ornithology has lost one of its most distinguished avian systematists.