Erna Mohr

Mohr was born in Hamburg, the daughter of a school teacher, and aside from some time in Schleswig-Holstein lived for most of her life in Hamburg. Between 1914 and 1934 she taught high school while volunteering at the Zoological Museum Hamburg and also published scholarly and popular scientific articles. At the Zoological Museum she began working with Ernst Ehrenbaum on age determination in fishes, where she is credited to have been the first to use ctenoid scales to estimate age. She later worked with Georg Duncker on fish taxonomy, including works on the viviparous halfbeaks (Zenarchopteridae), sand lances (Ammodytidae) and shrimpfish (Centriscidae). After Duncker's retirement in 1934, Mohr became head of the Fish Biology department, and in 1936 became head of the Department of Higher Vertebrates. She became Curator of the Vertebrate Department in 1946. She also worked extensively with mammals, publishing on rodents, seals, hoofed-mammals, and other groups. She became a member of the American Society of Mammalogists in 1928, and in 1959 she wrote a monograph on the endangered Przewalski's horse, a "pre-emininet compendium.. That can never be surpassed for its firsthand accounts of the early history of the species". She compiled studbooks for the Przewalski's horse and European bison, and was active in reintroduction efforts for the latter. Mohr produced over 400 publications during her career. She received an honorary doctorate from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in 1950. In 1966 she was elected an Honorary Member of the American Society of Mammalogists, the Society's most esteemed honor, and as of 1996 was the only woman to have been so rewarded. Mohr died in Hamburg in 1968. She was buried in the Ohlsdorf Cemetery's Garden of Women, with a statue of a hutia (a large rodent) marking her grave. • Illustration — A hutia statue stands beside Mohr's grave in Ohlsdorf Cemetery.

• Name — Erna Mohr • Born — 11 July 1894 • Birthplace — Hamburg, German Empire • Died — 10 September 1968 • Place of death — Hamburg, West Germany • Fields — * Mammalogy • Ichthyology • Workplaces — Zoological Museum Hamburg

Erna Mohr is recorded as zoologist, ichthyologist, mammalogist, curator and teacher.