Obituary for JENS BØDTKER RASMUSSEN SALAMANDRA 41 4 161-165 Rheinbach, 20 November 2005 ISSN 0036-3375 Obituary for JENS BØDTKER RASMUSSEN (1947-2005) The international herpetological community was shocked when the sad news dispersed that JENS BØDTKER RASMUSSEN had passed away on the 3rd of May of this year. The shock was the greater as we, his friends and colleagues, were completely unprepared for this terrible news: A severe illness had defeated JENS with- in only a few weeks and took him brutally away from his family as well as from his professional life as the herpetological cura- tor of the Zoological University Museum of Copenhagen. His death finished abruptly a long-term and still flourishing period of suc- cessful work on the African snake fauna. JENS BØDTKER RASMUSSEN was born on the 16th of April 1947 in Copenhagen where he spent also his entire school time. Still being a schoolboy, he visited regularly the Zoolo- gical Museum of his city, which at that time was still in its old building in Copenhagen’s Photo: MOGENS ANDERSEN. Krystalgade. He kept his close contacts to this museum also as a student and he re- ceived much support by the then head of the lege to spend the nights in the office of Dr. vertebrate department, Dr. F.W. BRAESTRUP. In BRAESTRUP. At these occasions I received my these years – the museum had received a new first impressions of and experiences with the and functional, modern building at Universi- remarkable scientific herpetological collec- tetsparken – our acquaintance and friendship tions of the Copenhagen Museum, and I used began. it often and regularly for my studies over all Nearly 40 years ago, in 1966, JENS and I the years until present, ever since I worked at had our first personal meetings. He came to a zoological museum myself. the University of Kiel (Institut für Haustier- In 1977, after he had reached the degree kunde) where I was studying zoology at that of a licenciate (lic. scient.), JENS RASMUSSEN time, and I visited him in Copenhagen, and was employed at the museum as the herpeto- guestrooms in our mutual institutions made logical curator and successing F.W. BRAES- these visits also for students financially tol- TRUP. His own research interests focussed ear- erable. The guestrooms in the Copenhagen ly on snakes, in particular on African snakes. Museum, however, were particularly remark- A fruitful time of research on African boigine able because during the day they were the snakes began, and JENS himself made his first working rooms and offices of the staff mem- experiences with African snake faunas in the bers, but each was also equipped with a field. His first trip led him, together with ARNE sleeping accomodation. So I had the privi- SCHIØTZ, then curator of Danmarks Akvarium © 2005 Deutsche Gesellschaft für Herpetologie und Terrarienkunde e.V. (DGHT) http://www.salamandra-journal.com 161 WOLFGANG BÖHME JENS RASMUSSEN during his first Africa-Symposium JENS RASMUSSEN on a field trip in Tanzania, exami- in Bonn, May 1984. Photo: ULRICH JOGER. ning a small boigine snake. Photo: MOGENS ANDER- SEN. at Charlottenlund near Copenhagen, to the and they both published a voluminous, im- Imatong Mountains in the southernmost Su- portant monograph on the snakes of Ethio- dan, and he brought an important herpetolo- pia. gical collection back to his museum. More JENS proved to be an active participant of collecting trips led him to Tanzania (mainly scientific meetings and congresses, visited to the biogeographically important moun- the OGM’s of the “Societas Europaea Herpe- tain ranges of Usambara and Uzungwa) and tologica” (SEH) quite regularly, and took also to eastern DR Congo (at that time Zaire). also part in the symposia on Afrotropical Already earler, JENS started travelling ac- biodiversity at ZFMK in Bonn. Our contact tivities to the major European collections, and correspondence over these years was still as a student to Vienna, later to London, dense and intensive and exceeded a good Liverpool, Paris, Brussels, Tervuren, and of relationship between friends very much. course also to Bonn. A good personal rela- In 1994, JENS submitted his doctoral the- tionship connected him with the famous sis to the University of Copenhagen which GARTH UNDERWOOD in London who showed dealt with “Studies on the taxonomy, phylo- great interest in JENS’ phylogenetic approach geny and zoogeography of the African rear- on boigine snakes using the snake eye retina fanged tree snakes, genus Dipsadoboa (Ser- cells. A special friendship linked him to pentes, Dipsadidae, Boiginae)”. This cumu- MALCOLM LARGEN in Liverpool who had run lative thesis consisted of seven separate the Addis Abeba museum for many years, papers all of which were published in inter- 162 Obituary for JENS BØDTKER RASMUSSEN nationally reputed journals between 1985 My sympathy is with his wife HEIDI AUNE and 1993. They were linked to each other by and his daughter KIT. It was his wish that his an extensive summary in Danish and Eng- ashes were strewed into the Baltic Sea. lish. This big work was supervised by Prof. BENT MUUS and co-reviewed by me. It had to be publicly defended and the University se- Acknowledgement lected me as the so-called opponent. The lecture and defense took place on the 3rd of I wish to thank JENS’ wife HEIDI AUNE and his June, 1994 and was a brilliant and dignified assistant in the Copenhagen Museum, MOGENS ANDERSEN, for help during the preparation of this academic event. obituary. The following party, celebrated with JENS’ family, friends and colleagues in the Zoological Museum, shed again light on an important facet of his personality which cer- Appendix tainly must also be remembered here. He was A list of the papers published by JENS BØDTKER a very social, communicative person, full of RASMUSSEN humour and fond of good eating and drin- king. An important passion was beer. Visi- RASMUSSEN, J.B. (1969): Giftslanger og deres gifte. ting him or being visited by him was always – Naturens Verden, 9/10: 266-283. a most agreeable and nice thing. I am glad RASMUSSEN, J.B. (1975): Geographical variation, that I may remember innumerable such mee- including an evolutionary trend, in Psammody- tings with him over the last four decades nastes pulverulentus (BOIE, 1827) (Boiginae, which made our friendship really personal Homalopsidae, Serpentes). – Vidensk. Meddr. and rich, including also our mutual families. Dansk Naturh. Foren. København, 138: 39-64. I agree with the spontaneous reaction of one RASMUSSEN, J.B. (1979): An intergeneric analysis of of our younger colleagues when he heard the some boigine snakes – BOGERT’s (1940) group sad news: Beer will never taste as before XIII and XIV (Boiginae, Serpentes). – Vi- densk. Meddr. Dansk Naturh. Foren., 141: 95- without JENS. 155. Two papers by JENS B. RASMUSSEN ap- RASMUSSEN, J.B. (1981): The snakes from the rain- peared posthumously (see the appendix be- forest of the Usambara mountains, Tanzania: a low): one paper on the striped night adder checklist and key. – Salamandra, Frankfurt (Causus bilineatus) and its relatives where a.M., 17(3/4): 173-188. the editor gave a first public note on JENS’ FRIIS, I. & RASMUSSEN, J.B. (1981): Flora and Fauna death and a selected list of his papers on of the Imatong Mountains, Southern Sudan. – African snakes, and one on Atractaspis ater- University of Copenhagen. rima. For African ophidiology, a still most RASMUSSEN, J.B. (1982): A new record of the rare Opisthotropis praemaxillaris (Serpentes: Co- promising scientific career has abruptly en- lubridae). – Amphibia-Reptilia, Wiesbaden, 3: ded. It was his great competence in his field 279-280. of research that the German Herpetological RASMUSSEN, J.B. (1982): Snakes. – in RODGERS, Society (DGHT) asked him quite recently to W.A. & K.M. HOMEWOOD: Species richness join the editorial board of the present journal and endemism in the Usambara mountain fo- and to help increasing its scientific level, as rest. - Biol. Journ. Linn. Soc. 18: 9. App.7. “Salamandra” is currently being performed RASMUSSEN, J.B. & K.M. HOWELL (1982): The into an English-speaking scientific journal current status of the rare Usambara mountain with international claim. He gladly agreed forest-viper, Atheris ceratophorus WERNER, 1895, including a probable new record of A. but was not allowed to see the appearance of nitschei rungweensis BOGERT, 1940, and a dis- the first issue. It is therefore more than appro- cussion of its validity (Reptilia: Serpentes, Vi- priate that I am devoting this obituary to him peridae). – Amphibia-Reptilia, Wiesbaden, 3: in just this journal. 269-277. 163 WOLFGANG BÖHME RASMUSSEN, J.B. & A.F. STIMSON (1983): Boiga (Serpentes, Dipsadidae, Lycodontinae, Boae- FITZINGER, 1826 (Reptilia, Serpentes): pro- dontini). – Steenstrupia, Copenhagen, 18(3): posed conservation under the plenary powers. 65-80. Z.N. (S.) 2404. – Bull. Zool. Nom., London, 40 RASMUSSEN, J.B. (1993): A taxonomic review of the (4): 209-210. Dipsadoboa unicolor complex, including a RASMUSSEN, J.B. (1985): A new species of Crota- phylogenetic analysis of the genus (Serpentes, phopeltis from East Africa, with remarks on the Dipsadidae, Boiginae). – Steenstrupia, Copen- identity of Dipsas hippocrepis REINHARDT, hagen, 19(4): 129-196. 1843 (Serpentes: Boiginae). – Steenstrupia, RASMUSSEN, J.B. (1993): Maxillary tooth number in København, 11(4): 113-129. the tree-snakes genus Dipsadoboa. – pp. 210- RASMUSSEN, J.B. (1985): A re-evaluation of the 211 in DAVIES, M. & R.M. NORRIS (eds.): systematics of the African rearfanged snakes of Second World Congress of Herpetology. Ab- BOGERT’s Group XIII-XVI, including a discus- stracts. – University of Adelaide, Adelaide, 309 sion of some evolutionary trends within Caeno- pp. phidia. – pp. 531-548 in SCHUCHMANN, K.-L. RASMUSSEN, J.B. (1993): The current taxonomic (ed.): Proc.