Biography

Moravian palaeontologist, geologist and zoologist whose major work was carried out in India. Ferdinand Stoliczka was born near Hochwald (Hukvaldy, Czech Republic), where his father was a forester at the estate of the Archbishop of Olomouc. The young Stoliczka was schooled in Kromeriz, but grew up speaking German rather than Czech. After studying geology and palaeontology in Prague and Vienna, he moved on to the University of Tübingen, earning his PhD in 1861. His early work included a paper communicated to the Vienna Academy on freshwater mollusca found in the Cretaceous rock of the north-eastern Alps.

In the year he finished his PhD Stoliczka joined the Austrian Geological Survey (Geologische Reichsanstalt Wien). The following year he was appointed palaeontologist to the Geological Survey of India in Calcutta, leading to his participation in a number of Himalayan expeditions over the next decade. He also explored southern India, being charged with describing the fossil fauna of the region's Cretaceous rocks. The results of this work were published in Palaeotologica indica, whose four volumes were complete by 1873. His most significant botanical publication, meanwhile, was probably the paper "Einige Betrachtungen über den Charakter der Flora und Fauna in der Umgebung von Chini" (1867). He published many more geological and zoological papers while in India.

Taking three months' leave in 1869, Stoliczka explored parts of Burma (Myanmar), the Malay Peninsula, the Andaman and Nicobar islands, while in 1873 he was chosen to accompany the second Douglas Forsyth Expedition to Turkestan (Yarkand) as naturalist and geologist. The expedition was an ambitious undertaking, partly mounted due to rivalry between the British and Russian empires. Chiefly a diplomatic enterprise with the aim of reaching the ruler of Chinese Turkestan, the expedition party included more than 6,400 porters and over 1,500 horses. Setting out from Rawalpindi, Stoliczka's course went to Leh, past the Pangong Lake, through the Karakash Valley and on to Yarkand. On the return journey, Stoliczka began to suffer from headaches and breathing difficulties. He succumbed to his illness (probably acute altitude sickness) on the Karakorum Pass (c. 18,000 ft.) and was buried in Leh (Ladakh), Western Tibet. The plant species Allardia stoliczkai C.B.Clarke and Saxifraga stoliczkae Duthie were named in his honour, as are a number of mammals and other animals.

Sources:
V. Ball, 1886, Memoir of the life and work of Ferdinand Stoliczka in Scientific results of the Second Yarkand Mission: 32-36
W.T. Blanford, 1874, Nature, 10: 185-186
W.T., Stearns, 1875, Proceedings of the Californian Academy of Science, 5: 363-364.