Mikael Heggelund Foslie

Who was Mikael Heggelund Foslie?

Mikael Heggelund Foslie was born on 21 October, 1855 in Borge, Lofoten Islands, Norway. During his childhood, he developed an interest in natural history and in collecting plants and animals. Foslie worked in the Norwegian telegraph service from 1874 until 1885, first in the Lofoten Islands, then in Oslo. He was 29 in 1885 when he began his first full-time scientific position as a curator at the Museum in Tromsø. Foslie moved to the Museum of the Royal Norwegian Society for Sciences and Letters in Trondheim in 1892, where he remained until his death in 1909.

Foslie contributed an algal collection named Algae Norvegicae to the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

This collection was donated to the Ulster Museum by The Queen's University of Belfast in 1968. The specimens have been catalogued into the main collection in the Ulster Museum catalogued: F10319 - F10336. It is assumed that this refers to Mikael Heggelund Foslie. The specimens bear dates from the 1880s to 1890s. Mikael Heggelund Foslie was curator of the Royal Norwegian Scientific Society museum in Trondheim.