The Dutch Indies Commission and the Herpetological Legacy of Heinrich Boie (1794–1827)

About this book

Although never published, Heinrich Boie’s Erpétologie de Java, written two centuries ago, was one of the most influential herpetological works of the 19th century. Boie’s manuscript served as the basis for many descriptions of amphibians and reptiles published between the 1820s and 1850s by his brother Friedrich and leading herpetologists of the early 19th century like Schlegel, Fitzinger, Tschudi, Gravenhorst and Wagler. 

In this volume, Jay Savage, Marcus (Max) Sparreboom, and Gregory Pregill place Boie and his work in the context of The Natural History Commission of the Netherlands Indies – the larger scientific endeavour in which Boie was a participant – review Boie’s surviving manuscript text and accompanying plates housed in the archives of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, and trace Boie’s herpetological legacy through the generation of authors who were influenced by his work. The authorship of names attributed to Boie and the nomenclatural, taxonomic, and bibliographic details of the works that referenced Erpétologie de Java are also critically evaluated in a series of 16 appendices, resolving many nomenclatural issues relating to Southeast Asian reptiles and amphibians.

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