Georg Karl Berendt

Who was Georg Karl Berendt?

Georg Karl Berendt was a German physician and paleontologist who was a native of Danzig.

He studied medicine and botany at the University of Königsberg, and from 1814 practiced medicine in Danzig. He is remembered for amassing a large collection of amber inclusions that amounted to 4216 specimens of plants, insects, arachnids, myriapods, and more. His collection is now housed at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin.

With paleobotanist Heinrich Göppert, he published a work on botanical amber inclusions titled Der Bernstein und die in ihm befindlichen Pflanzenreste der Vorwelt. In 1854 entomologist Carl Ludwig Koch published the treatise Die im Bernstein befindlichen Myriapoden, Arachniden und Apteren der Vorwelt, based on material from Berendt's amber collection.