Zoological Biology
Otto Antonius is considered to be the co-founder of modern zoological biology besides Heini Hediger and Karl Max Schneider.
He was among the academic authors who published regularly in the journal Der Zoologische Garten. Furthermore he was co-editor of Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie.
Even the goals of the zoo changed. It became a place for animal experiments and breeding. Questions about heredity and ancestry were also addressed.
This era is called the heyday of science in zoological gardens. That is why the Menagerie Schönbrunn changed its name officially into Tiergarten Schönbrunn in 1926.
Antonius thought of livestock husbandry as a psychological experiment, in which one could study the typal and differentiated characteristics of the animals. With his comparative studies he contributed to the emerging discipline of ethology. Furthermore he conducted experiments on feeding and acclimatisation.
Being a zoologist, he also dealt with genetics and livestock breeding. He was especially interested in studies about hybridisation to explore the ancestry of domestic animals. In 1922 he published his book Grundzüge der Stammesgeschichte der Haustiere. It dealt with the research on animal domestication as a new category in livestock breeding. The book lists zoological and historical methods of domestic animal research, such as their exact body structure, mentioning for example their bone structure or the colour of their fur. Antonius tried to "breed back" domestic animals into the ones they descended from. Since those experiments were connected with the national socialist ideology, there were no other zoo directors who joined those experiments.
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