Bernard Altum

Johann Bernard Theodor Altum (31 January 1824 – 1 February 1900) was a German Catholic priest, zoologist, and forest scientist who also engaged in popularizing his religiously grounded understanding of science.

Later, his interests turned to zoology, a discipline that he studied under Johannes Peter Müller and Martin Lichtenstein in Berlin, obtaining a doctorate in 1855 with a thesis comparing Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.

From 1859 he was a lecturer at the University of Münster, then relocated in 1869 to the Academy of Forestry in Eberswalde as a successor to Julius Theodor Christian Ratzeburg.

[2] In his earlier work, his research primarily dealt with mammals and birds; after moving to Eberswalde, his studies were largely in the field of forest entomology.

Ernst Mayr wrote about Altum's 1868 book Der Vogel und sein Leben which included notes on territoriality in birds in 1935.