Otto Widmann

Otto Widmann (June 15, 1841 – November 26, 1933) was an American ornithologist of German origin who was among the first to document the birds of the Missouri region.

He published it in 1907 as a Preliminary Catalog of the Birds of Missouri after spending years to accumulate notes that were lost in a fire in 1905.

His father was interested in plants and had assembled a large herbarium while working on the estate of the Grand Duke of Baden, an all round naturalist.

When Widmann was young he had access to the private library of the Grand Duke and among these were Johann Friedrich Naumann's birds of Germany in 12 volumes with illustrations.

In 1874 Augusta gifted her husband a copy of Birds of North America by Theodore Jasper and still later a cane gun for collecting specimens.