August Spennemann

Who was August Spennemann?

August Spennemann was a German amateur ornithologist who lived in Java for 25 years. While he was there he compiled an account of his observations in the late 1920s of the Javan Lapwing, near Pamanukan in West Java province. The typescript of his notes was lost until 2000 when it turned up at the Zoological Museum in Amsterdam. Spennemann’s notes include descriptions of the hitherto unrecorded behaviour and calls of the poorly-known bird, which was last seen in 1940 and is now probably extinct.