Biography

German geologist and palaeontologist who spent several years collecting zoological and botanical specimens in South America. Born to a family of financiers in Hamburg, Hauthal first studied theology. His passion, however, was the natural sciences and he went on to study geology and botany in Strasbourg.

He worked as a teacher before making his first trip to South America, arriving in Buenos Aires in 1891. Here, he met Argentine explorer, Francisco Moreno (1852-1919), and began to undertake his own collecting expeditions. Some of his botanical specimens from trips undertaken in Argentina and Paraguay (1901-1902) became part of the herbarium of Otto Kuntze (later acquired by New York), while zoological and palaeontological items were deposited in museums.

Hauthal wrote on the geology of Argentina and took up the position of Curator of Geology at the Museum of La Plata, before heading off on another collecting excursion, this time to Bolivia and Peru in 1905-1906. In Bolivia, he collected plant specimens from the areas of La Paz and Illimani. He then returned to Germany, writing up his experiences in Reisen in Bolivien und Peru ausgefuhrt (1911), which features nearly ninety photographs of Bolivia, and became Director of the Römer-Museum in Hildesheim. Hauthal was the first ever person to climb Volcano Lanín in the southern Andes, in 1897.