Feistmantel, Otokar Eduard Franz Karel   (1848 - 1891)

Born 20 November 1848 in Stará Huť (now Czech Republic); died on 10 February 1891 in Prague.

Otokar Eduard Franz Karel Feistmantel (other spellings include Otakar Feistmantl) was a Czech-Austrian (born in Bohemia) geologist and paleontologist who studied in Prague and Berlin and worked with the Geological Survey of India in India from 1874. Feistmantel described several genera and species of fossil plants from peninsular India, and his work on the "Gondwana Series" contributed to the development of the idea of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwanaland.

In 1881, he was awarded a prize at the Melbourne International Exhibition (1880) for his work on the Australian fossil flora and around this time he obtained a faculty position at the Czech Polytechnic School in Prague but continued to work in India.

Feistmantel was particularly fascinated by the tribal Gonds and Santals. He admired that they were open, direct and honest. He noted that the non-tribal village people were, in contrast, often unsupportive of the travelling geologists.

The continent of Gondwana (= Gondwanaland) was named by the Austrian scientist Eduard Suess, after the region in central India of the same name, which is derived from Sanskrit for "forest of the Gonds".

Source: Extracted from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otokar_Feistmantel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondwana
Portrait Photo: Wikipedia