- 2002

I was surprised to read the announcement of Stenholt Clausen's passing in this month's BNL. Clausen is probably a pretty obscure name to most killie people today, but in the late 1950's in Africa he was one of the first to seriously study and collect West African killifish species. So much of Scheel's work was based on fish and information that Clausen, his fellow Dane, sent him from the field. Clausen, through Scheel, introduced many species to the hobby, not the least of which was the first gardneri population -- Akure "yellow" and "blue." Scheel gave the gardneri the wrong name (calliurum) and Clausen described them as nigerianum but gardneri they were. This fish. more than any other, grew the killie hobby in the late 1950's.

Clausen's greatest contribution was his recognition that the blue gularis was in fact the fish described as Aphyosemion sjoestedti and the fish that had been called "sjoestedti" was an undescribed species that Clausen named Rolofia occidentalis. "Roloffia" as a valid name is sadly gone today, but it is not too much to say that Clausen's work on SJO and OCC helped to set off the entire inquiry into the names and relationships of so many West African killies over the years. Clausen was the pioneer. Along with Scheel and Erhard Roloff, Stenholt Clausen was the last of three masters who helped to make the worldwide killifish hobby and science what they are today.

Robert E.

Clausen was born in Los Angeles in 1921. His parents had both immigrated from Denmark to USA, and met each other there. In 1925 they moved back to Denmark, and until he was 14 he lived in Resenbro near Silkeborg in Jutland (Jylland). After that, they moved to Copenhagen (K�benhavn), and during world war II he studied biology at the University of Copenhagen. Eventually got his masters degree in 1948, specializing in the relationship between apes and humans, and for half a year he studied paleoanthropology under von K�nigswald at the University of Utrecht in the Nederlands. In 1952 he was eployed in a permanent position at University College of Ibadan where did teaching in zoology as wel as research. He wanted to work with chimpanzees, but the professor at the institute did not approve, so he started to work with killifish. So in the spring of 1952 the whole family left for Nigeria where they spent the next 7 years. In 1959 Stenholt Clausen was employed at the zoological museum of Copenhagen.

While staying in Nigeria numerous expiditions were made in Nigeria, Cameroun (British and French) and Benin (Dahomey). Usually, the whole family participated, and they all took part in collection of fish and earthworms. The earthworms were Martha�s interest.

In 1962 Clausen went on an expedition to Ghana, Togo, Benin (Dahomey), and Nigeria.

In 1965 he became a visiting lecturer at the Kwame Nkruma University of Science and Technology in Kumasi in Ghana. During that year expeditions were made into Cote d�Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and also into Togo. In January 1966 Claus and Martha took off on an expedition from Ghana into Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroun and Gabon, everywhere collecting killifish and earthworms.
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