Biography

German-born botanist and zoologist. Fiebrig collected in Bolivia and Paraguay in the early 20th century and latterly worked at the Lillo Institute in Argentina. Born in Hamburg, 1869, Karl Fiebrig travelled to South America in 1902 to collect plant and insect specimens for European museums. His first expedition took him to Bolivia (1903-1904), followed by Paraguay (1904-1909), where he settled. In 1910 he was appointed Professor of Botany and Zoology at the University of Asunción, where he founded and became Director of the Museum of Natural History, Botanical Garden and Zoo in 1914. Several parts of the garden were designed in collaboration with his wife, Anna Gertz. From 1934-1936 Fiebrig was also Director of the Paraguayan Department of Agriculture, giving up the role to return to Germany as a professor at the Latin American Institute in Berlin. At the end of the Second World War he emigrated to Argentina, working as a botanist at the Lillo Institute in Tucuman, in which city he died suddenly in 1951. Fiebrig wrote many papers on South American flora, including an ecological study. The University of Marburg awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1923 in respect of his work in South America.