User:Gabelju/Marie von Chauvin

Marie von Chauvin (born December 21, 1848 in Berlin; † July 21, 1921 in Littenweiler) was a German naturalist. She pioneered the conversion of the axolotl into ambystoma.

Life
Marie von Chauvin was born in Berlin as the daughter of the Prussian general Franz von Chauvin and his wife Anna Rosa, née Buschbeck. In 1872 the family moved to Freiburg.

Since Marie von Chauvin was unable to study, she tried to teach herself the basics of zoology in self-study. She was supported in this by the zoologists Carl Eduard Adolph Gerstäcker and Carl Theodor von Siebold. Initially she was interested in questions of entomology with a focus on Trichoptera, later she switched her focus to amphibians.

Experiment
As early as 1867, André Marie Constant Duméril started experiments investigating the metamorphosis of the axolotls. He was followed by August Weismann, who had received animals from Albert von Koelliker in 1872. Weismann's investigations did not produce the desired results. Von Chauvin began her experiment on June 12, 1874 based on Duméril's attempts to convert the animals from gill breathers to lung breathers. In contrast to Weismann, Chauvin relied on precise observation and adaptation of environmental influences to the needs of the animals. At the end of November 1874 she separated an axolotl which was regularly on the surface of the water in the glass balloon. She moved the axolotl to a new environment in which it had the opportunity to be entirely in the water or entirely out of the water. While constantly observing the reaction of the animals, Chauvin began to lower the water level, which led to four of the five test animals transforming within six weeks.

Selected bibliography

 * 1876: Ueber die Verwandlung der mexikanischen Axolotl in Amblystoma. Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie, 27, 522–535. Online
 * 1877: Ueber das Anpassungsvermögen der Larven von Salamandra atra. Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie, 29, 324–350. Online
 * 1885: Ueber die Verwandlungsfähigkeit des mexikanischen Axolotl. Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie, 41, 365–389. Online