Jørgen Knudsen: 6 March 1918 - 7 October 2009
Jørgen
Knudsen was born on the 6 March 1918 in the village of Børkop
in Vejle County, Denmark. His father was a physician and his
mother a nurse. Jørgen joined the University of Copenhagen
in 1937 and in 1941 obtained a student assistantship in the
University’s Zoological Museum to sort out the molluscs
collected from all over the world by Th. Mortensen (1868-1952).
From this material, Jørgen published his first paper
on a new species of galeommatoidean, Jousseaumiella concharum,
living commensally with a gephyrean and a polychaete in empty
mitrid shells (Knudsen, 1944). Thus began a scientific career
that would span many decades.
Jørgen graduated in January 1945 with a M.A. and, in
that summer, with the Second World War over, a wealthy businessman,
Viggo Jarl, wanted his yacht – the Atlantide - to be used
for a scientific expedition. Jørgen was invited to participate.
The expedition departed Copenhagen for ten months at sea in
October 1945 and sailed first to Plymouth in England and then
to West Africa, as far south as Angola and, on the return, as
far west as the Açores. Upon his return in June 1946,
Jørgen took up a position in the Royal Veterinary and
Agricultural College in Copenhagen and then, in 1947, obtained
a position at the laboratories of the then named Danish Biological
Station at Charlottenlund.
While working at the station, Jørgen learnt that there
was to be another Danish expedition departing in 1950. This
was to be the second round-the-world Galathea Deep Sea Expedition,
following in the path of the first in 1845. Jørgen was,
however, ultimately denied the opportunity to participate in
this expedition. Between 1950-1952, the expedition amassed a
huge collection of deep-sea material, but it was not for a number
of years that Jørgen could work on it. In 1957, Jørgen
left the station, which had now become the Danish Institute
of Fisheries Research, and rejoined the University Museum as
a teacher and curator to replace Gunnar Thorson (1906-1971)
who was building the University’s marine biological laboratory
at Helsingør (Elsinore).
Between 1959-1960, Jørgen spent six months, sponsored
by UNESCO, teaching at the marine laboratory in Nha Trang in
Vietnam. There, he had the opportunity to join one of the cruises
of the NAGA Expedition to research the Gulf of Thailand. In
1964, also sponsored by UNESCO, Jørgen began to teach
marine biology to students from developing Asian countries at
the University of Copenhagen. And, although he had been unable
to join the Galathea, he set to work on the molluscan material
the expedition had collected, producing three classic papers
on the wood-boring species of Xylophaga, the deep-sea
Scaphopoda and Gastropoda, and the Bivalvia. He also published
further on the prosobranchs collected by Mortensen and wrote
up the bivalves collected during the John Murray Expedition
to the Indian Ocean (1933-1934). It was this detailed series
of studies, really the first comprehensive examination of the
deep-sea Mollusca, that made Jørgen’s reputation
and he became the authority on them. This pioneering research
earned him his doctorate (D.Sc.) in 1970.
It is less well known that Jørgen became an authority
on cephalopods, writing up the eastern Mediterranean species,
describing three new species of Sepiola and cataloging
the type specimens in the collections of the Zoological Museum
of the University of Copenhagen. In the 1980’s and early
1990’s, Jørgen’s research interests further
diversified and he developed an interest in introduced species
describing the immigration of marine invertebrates into the
Danish Limfjord and the North Sea-Baltic Transition Area, and
recording the arrival (in ~1984) of the American jack-knife
clam, Ensis americanus, into Danish coastal waters.
Between 1988 and 1998, and typically funded by the Carlsberg
Foundation, Jørgen participated in various Hong Kong
and Australian marine and malacological workshops, always publishing
his results of these field-based ventures. To complete the workshop
circle, Jørgen also attended the Hong Kong workshops
reunion conference (1977-1998) convened in 2001 and presented
a poster upon his latest research on egg capsules, protoconchs
and prosobranch reproduction. He was then 83 years old!
In addition to Danish, Jørgen spoke and wrote French,
German and English virtually fluently and, over the course of
his long career, translated and published some important biological
texts first from German into Danish and latterly from Danish
into English. From 1999 onwards, Jørgen, in collaboration
with Jørgen Hylleberg and K.R. Jensen, translated many
of Lorentz Spengler’s important taxonomic works into English.
In the 21st century, and now into his 80’s, Jørgen
continued his research and writing on invasive species, also
in co-operation with Kathe Jensen.
To celebrate Jørgen’s 90th birthday, a meeting
was held in Copenhagen from 6-7 March 2008. This was attended
by family, friends and colleagues, many of whom gave talks in
his honour (Jensen, 2009). For the proceedings of that meeting,
Jørgen co-authored two papers on (i), fossil panopeans
and (ii), on Johan Christian Fabricius. With these publications,
he thus completed 65 years of scientific contributions to marine
biology and malacology. Morton (2009) provides a list of Jørgen’s
main publications, although he also wrote other, more popular,
articles.
Jørgen was a quiet, modest, self-effacing gentleman.
He was also a dedicated scholar and teacher, a helpful and co-operative
colleague, a loyal and trustworthy friend and a warm human being.
Over his long, fruitful and distinguished career, he obtained
the respect of both the marine and malacological scientific
communities virtually worldwide, and my personal admiration.
Jensen,
K. R. (Guest Editor). 2009. Steenstrupia 30(2): 81-176. Special
Issue dedicated to Jørgen Knudsen on the occasion of
his 90th birthday, 6 March 2008.
Brian Morton
e-mail: prof...@hotmail.co.uk
FIG: JØRGEN KNUDSEN RELAXING WITH HIS FRIEND MR CARLSBERG
(CAUSING A RARELY-SEEN WRY SMILE) AT THE EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL
MARINE BIOLOGICAL WORKSHOP, HONG KONG 1995. PHOTO: BRIAN MORTON
Indrella amputta. © The Natural History Museum, London.
Mariaella dussumieri. © The Natural History Museum, London.
Beddomea trifasciatus (lowland form). © The Natural History Museum, London.