Johannes Theodor Reinhardt

Who was Johannes Theodor Reinhardt?

Johannes Theodor Reinhardt was a Danish zoologist and herpetologist. He was the son of Johannes Christopher Hagemann Reinhardt.

In 1848 he became a curator at the Königlichen Naturhistorischen Museum in Kopenhagen. He taught classes in zoology at the Danmarks Tekniske Universitet and at the University of Copenhagen. In 1854 he received the title of professor.

During the 1840s and 1850s he periodically worked in Brazil as an assistant to palaeontologist Peter Wilhelm Lund. He was an early supporter of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, and from his research of extinct species, was critical of George Cuvier's concept of "anti-evolutionary catastrophism".

With Christian Frederik Lütken, he was co-author of Bidrag til Kundskab om Brasiliens Padder og Krybdyr.

In 1848, Hermann Schlegel named the Calabar "python", Charina reinhardtii, in his honor.