Species Abildgaardia hygrophila

For Peder Christian Abildgaard (1740–1801), Danish zoologist and veterinarian. He dropped out of secondary school for financial reasons and worked in a pharmacy for five years where he learned chemistry. Thereafter, he studied medicine at the University of Copenhagen obtaining his doctorate in 1768. In 1773 he started his own veterinary college and became the director of the Royal Veterinary College at Christianshavn and through his work obtained the deserving title of ‘father of Danish veterinary science’. During his career he published many works on medicine and zoology with his main interest being natural history, mainly dealing with intestinal parasites, leeches and protozoans. He was the author of Historia Brevis Regii Instituti Veterinarii Hafniensis (1788), founder of The Natural History Society (1789) and was the first researcher to describe the mineral species Cryolite from specimens brought back from Greenland.