Zietz, Amandus Heinrich Christian   (1840 - 1921)

He was born on 13 June 1840 in Hamburg, Germany; died on 2 August 1921 in Adelaide, SA.

He began his working life as a teacher but this did not suit him and after an expedition to Brazil to collect invertebrates he worked at Museum Godeffroy in Hamburg.

In 1871 he transferred to the Zoological Museum in Kiel.

Zietz was offered the position of Preparateur at the South Australian Museum in February 1884.

His family, wife and children, sailed from Hamburg on 5 April 1884 on S.S. Taormina and arrived in Adelaide on 9 June 1884.

Zietz's appointment at the Museum began on the day he arrived in Adelaide, on an annual salary of £150.87. He was in charge of molluscs and other invertebrates and all specimens in spirit, but he had wide curatorial skills and a very broad knowledge of zoology.

After only four years and having arrived with relatively little English he became the Museum's senior professional employee as Assistant Director in 1888.

When the Director, E.C. Stirling, was asked to join the Horn Expedition to central Australia in 1894, Zietz was placed in charge of the Museum.

From 1896-1901 Amandus and his son Robert almost achieved the complete assembly of a Diprotodon skeleton recently collected from Lake Callabonna, much to the surprise of Stirling who had made arrangements for the British Museum to take the lead in this exacting task.

Later in his tenure he took an increasing interest in ornithology and bird taxonomy.

Amandus Zietz was obliged to retire from the Museum when he turned 70 and the Board noted that he had successfully and devotedly performed his duties in the service of the Museum for 25 years. He was granted eight months' long service leave on 1 December 1909 and retired on 31 July 1910.

He wrote the first dozen entries in the new Museum bird register in January-February 1911, indicating that he was helping his son Robert as a volunteer.

Amandus Zietz died at his home in Kingswood, SA, aged 81, on 2 August 1921.

Source: Extracted from:
Philippa Horton, Andrew Black & Brian Blaylock (2017). 'Ornithology at the South Australian Museum, Adelaide: 1856 to 1939'. In Contributions to the History of Australasian Ornithology IV, Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, No.23
Portrait Photo: SA Museum Archives AA 298/13.

Collecting localities for 'Zietz, A.' from AVH (2024)

Data from 15 specimens