Otto Fabricius (6 March 1744 – 20 May 1822) was aDanishmissionary, naturalist,ethnographer, andexplorer of Greenland.[1][2]
Otto Fabricius was born inRudkøbing on the island ofLangeland, Denmark, where his father was a rector. In his youth, he was educated largely at home by tutors. In 1762, he was matriculated at theUniversity of Copenhagen. In 1765, he was admitted to the Greenland Mission Seminary (Seminarium Groenlandicum), where he attended classes taught byPoul Egede. In 1768 he graduated with a degree in divinity.[3]
He was sent as a missionary to the southwestern coast ofGreenland from 1768 to 1773. During this period, he made enormous amounts of observations and collections. His laboratory was an Inuit house made of turf. His only artificial light was an oil lamp. He had a few magnifying glasses and only one book was in his library,LinnaeiSystema Naturae byCarl Linnaeus. Nevertheless, he made enough zoological observation to be able to publishFauna Groenlandica (1780), which was written in Latin, after his return toDenmark. Here, he described 473 animal species, primarily marine, 130 of which were proposed as new to science. Detailed descriptions are given, including information onhabitat and behaviour, the vernacularInuit name, what use the Inuit make of the animal and not least how they caught or trapped it.[4][5]
In 1774, he was appointed rector atDrangedal inTelemark, Norway where he stayed until 1779 while he completed work for aGreenlandic language dictionary which was published in 1804. In 1789, he succeeded Poul Egede to become a lecturer in the Greenland Mission Seminary. In 1818, he was appointed an Honorary Bishop of theChurch of Denmark and awarded a Doctorate of Divinity.[6]
