Otto Kleinschmidt

Otto Kleinschmidt was a German ornithologist, theologist and pastor. He was also an artist and taxidermist who produced specimens and illustrations of birds for his writings. He was critical of Darwinian ideas on evolution and natural selection and developed a kind of creationist superspecies concept called Formenkreis which involved variation with geographic dispersal that he illustrated with what he called "geogramms". He edited a periodical Falco which was a companion to a monograph series called Berajah. After speculating on the variations of birds he also examined human variation and gave theories that have been interpreted variously as a form of scientific racism.