KONRAD Z.

LORENZ
(7 November 1903–27 February 1989)
 KONRAD Z. LORENZ
(7 November 1903–27 February 1989)

“W hen I was a child, I imagined the Lord would look like

him.” My wife exclaimed these words after she had met
Konrad Lorenz for the first time in 1960. Indeed, this “divine” compar-
ison was not quite out of place. Lorenz was a handsome, tall man of
an—estimated—weight of about 100 kg, with dense, white hair on the
head, a white mustache, and a white beard in those days. His relatively
high-pitched voice, however, did not quite fit this impressive and mas-
sive bodily appearance. Of course, these were mere externals, but they
seemed to be typical of him. When I would try to characterize Lorenz
as a person or as a scientist—two aspects that could hardly be separated
from one another in his case—I could not make any statement without
adding “but,” or “although,” or “on the other hand,” or something
similar. As much as can be said in his praise, one cannot maintain that
he was without contradictions.
For instance, Konrad Lorenz could fight vehemently for his con-
victions and conceptions. He did not even hesitate to present hypothe-
ses, such as the one on the self-domestication of man, where it was to
be expected that he would make enemies and meet much resistance. On
the other hand, he could be almost shy, and softly submit to an oppo-
nent when a defense of his position would have been very feasible, or
he needed a strong “push” from outside to become convinced that his
observations and conclusions were correct.
A truly fateful event of this last type led to Lorenz’s acquaintance
and close cooperation with the physiologist Erich von Holst, who
later—up to his early death—became the director of the Max-Planck-
Institute of Behavioral Physiology at Seewiesen, Germany, together
with Lorenz. Lorenz’s wife, Margarethe, once gave a vivid account of
the circumstances under which these two men met each other for the
first time in 1937. In the course of his research on certain birds, Lorenz
had discovered unmistakable signs of spontaneity in their instinctive
behavior, up to the occurrence of vacuum activities, which appeared to
be incongruous with the reflex theory that was the generally accepted
theory on animal behavior at least in Europe at that time. He presented

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the results of his research in an official lecture in Berlin, but he closed

his speech by stating that, of course, the contradictions with the reflex
theory were only apparent, and that the behaviors in question were
only special and somewhat complicated cases of reflex chains. It so
happened that Margarethe Lorenz had been sitting in the auditorium
next to a relatively young, good-looking man who had followed
Lorenz’s presentation with the greatest attention and engagement,
murmuring several times, “You are right, man, you are right.” Upon
Lorenz’s closing words, however, he put his hands in front of his face,
groaning, “Oh, you idiot!” He then asked Lorenz for a conversation.
He told him that he, von Holst, had conducted physiological research
on nervous processes, and that he had found evidence of endogenous
and spontaneous activity within the central nervous system, and of a
central coordination of the nervous impulses. Thus, in his physiological
research, von Holst had found evidence for spontaneity corresponding
strongly to the spontaneity Lorenz had observed in the behavior of his
geese, ducks, starlings, and so on. He made it very clear that such phe-
nomena could not be explained as special cases of reflex chains, and that
they were absolutely outside the realm of the reflex theory. As Lorenz
later said, it took von Holst only ten minutes to convince him. How-
ever, he had needed this “push” from another person.
A much less important but, in principle, similar case, I once expe-
rienced myself with Lorenz. I may mention here that I did not meet
him personally more than ten times, but our “sessions” always lasted a
long time and were unforgettable for me. In the beginning of the dis-
cussion in question, we talked about the intraspecific aggression in ani-
mals such as ibex, markhor goat, argali, and bighorn sheep. These are
species in which the combatants commonly rise on their hind legs in
fighting and clash their horns together, “deep-diving” from the upright
posture. In this context, I mentioned that there is a difference between
the goats and the sheep species in their otherwise relatively similar
behavior: in the upright posture, the sheep stretch their forelegs stiffly
downward, whereas the goats angle them toward the chest and belly.
This was just a remark, and then we spoke of many other things. When
we said goodbye six hours later, Lorenz looked at me somewhat
thoughtfully and said: “By the way, you were right. Sheep and goats
differ in the way they keep their front legs in the upright stance, pre-
cisely as you described it.” I think these few words revealed several fea-
tures typical of Lorenz. Although his “heart” belonged to the birds,
particularly geese and ducks, and to fish, particularly cichlids and coral
fish, he had never missed an occasion to register “snapshots” of the
behavior of other animals. In the course of time, he had gathered quite
 KONRAD Z. LORENZ 463

a number of such “pictures” in his mind, and his comparative back-

ground was sometimes richer than is apparent from his publications, in
which he often selected just one example to illustrate a principal point.
In this talk, he obviously had compared what I had said with the corre-
sponding “pictures” in his memory, and he had found them to agree
with it—apparently a little to his own surprise, which means that he
had seen and known something before, but needed at least a mild
“push” from outside to make him fully aware of it.
Konrad Z. Lorenz has been said to be “the father of a science”
(ethology). I do think that this honorable designation is correct and
deserved. Of course, where there is a “father,” there are also “grand-
fathers.” Such “grandparents” and forerunners were, for instance,
Oskar Heinroth, Jakob von Uexküll, and Charles O. Whitman. Also,
there were a few more “parents” (of ethology) besides Lorenz, such as
Otto Koehler, Nikolaas Tinbergen, and David Lack. It was primarily
Lorenz, however, who pushed ethology through as a new branch of
science—against remarkable resistance in the scientific world. Particu-
larly, with the emphasis he put on the theoretical and practical impor-
tance of knowledge of the species-specific behavior of free-ranging
animals under natural or at least semi-natural conditions, and, linked to
it, with the strong emphasis he put on (nonexperimental) observation
as a fully valid (and far from easy) means of scientific research, Lorenz
opened a new dimension in zoology, and the door to the extensive field
research, particularly on higher animals, that has been executed by
many younger scientists all over the world in the second half of the
twentieth century; although—again an “although”—Lorenz himself
was not truly a field worker. His strong point was to make greylag
geese, jackdaws, and other birds so tame and confident that he could
live together with them, could keep many of them free-ranging in his
house and garden, and could watch them—mostly in a figurative sense,
but sometimes even literally—from the couch.
I was fortunate to witness part of the development of ethology
and to experience the great change Lorenz had brought about in bio-
logical sciences, particularly with respect to the behavior of higher
mammals—a field that was not in the focus of his own research inter-
ests (as I said above, his “heart” belonged to the birds and the fish).
Before Lorenz’s influence, beginning in the 1950s, became effective,
most professional zoologists were of the opinion that, speaking with
only slight exaggeration, all was known about animals such as carni-
vores, ungulates, and monkeys and apes. But after Lorenz had opened
this new dimension, i.e., the scientific approach to the natural behavior
of animals, it became evident that in this regard, again speaking with
464 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

only slight exaggeration, nothing was known—not even about animals

that had lived together with man for thousands of years, e.g., the
domestic cat, on which Lorenz’s great student Paul Leyhausen con-
ducted an excellent study. Of course, we are still far away from know-
ing “everything.” However, when one reads what has been written in
representative books on the behavior of mammals such as the gorilla,
chimpanzee, lion, tiger, giraffe, gazelle, wildebeest, mountain sheep,
moose, and pronghorn, up to 1950–60, and when one compares it to
what has become known since, one sees a difference like night and day,
whereby the situation in higher mammals is used here just as one exam-
ple for many other, corresponding cases. I wish to stress this point since
it is often forgotten in discussions for or against Lorenz. As with Dar-
win, many people became aware of him and his conceptions only after,
and because, he had said something concerning humans—and, indeed,
he and his early coworkers discovered things that are of importance for
human psychology and for philosophy, such as imprinting or nonver-
bal thinking. Moreover, modern students usually take it for granted
that they can get lectures on ethology for example in the departments
of zoology, wildlife and fisheries sciences, animal sciences, or veteri-
nary medicine, and they cannot imagine that, up to the 1950s, a student
who wished to conduct a descriptive study on the behavior of an ani-
mal species for his master’s or Ph.D. program often had great difficulty
finding a supervisor. The enormous progress in our knowledge of ani-
mal behavior as well as the drastic change in the academic situation
became possible and is now in effect because Lorenz pioneered the way
and opened the door for them. In my opinion, this was and is his great-
est and everlasting scientific merit.
As mentioned above, there were several “grandparents” and “par-
ents” of the Lorenzian ethology, and it is quite interesting and informa-
tive to glance at Lorenz’s relationships with them. (In part, Lorenz told
me about them; in part, I learned something from the persons con-
cerned.) Apparently, Lorenz’s closest relationship was with Oskar Hein-
roth, with whom he got in contact in the 1920s, when he was still a
young and unknown man, whereas the much older Heinroth was one
of the leading ornithologists in Europe and a curator at the Berlin zoo.
Lorenz spoke gratefully of him as his “teacher,” and he characterized
Heinroth as a man who relied strongly on observed facts, with great
reservations about theoretical speculations. He had once advised Lorenz
“to keep away from generalizations as from the incarnate devil.” To
judge from the emphasis with which Lorenz reported these words,
they apparently had made a great impression on him. Nevertheless, I
had trouble suppressing an ironic smile when hearing this from him,
 KONRAD Z. LORENZ 465

since it came to my mind that Lorenz had quite certainly not followed
this advice of his “teacher.” It was his very generalizations and theoret-
ical considerations that had attracted the attention of the scientific
world and had played a great part when Lorenz established ethology as
a new branch of science. Perhaps this was the reason why his, but not
Heinroth’s, efforts eventually brought about the breakthrough.
Another outstanding scientist who had had an important
influence on ethology in general, and on Lorenz’s work in particular,
was Jakob von Uexküll with his conception of the Umwelt, meaning
the world as it is experienced by an animal of a given species due to its
sensory and instinctive organization. He was much older than Lorenz,
but Lorenz had still known him personally and had dedicated his long
paper “Der Kumpan in der Umwelt des Vogels” (which may be trans-
lated—not quite literally—as “The companion in the bird’s life”) to
him in 1935, on the occasion of von Uexküll’s seventieth birthday.
Later, however, Lorenz only once (1957) gave full credit to von
Uexküll’s role in the development of ethology. Otherwise, it struck me
how seldom his name occurred in Lorenz’s publications. Maybe he
could not forgive von Uexküll for heavily attacking Darwin and his
theory. Lorenz was a great admirer of Darwin and a convinced adher-
ent of the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution.
Similarly, Lorenz’s relationship with Heini Hediger, the great
Swiss animal psychologist and zoo director, could almost be described
as a “dear-enemy” relationship. That is to say, each man spoke of the
other as “my friend”; however, they differed in their attitude toward
animal psychology, and this difference ran deep. Originally, Lorenz
had not been opposed to animal psychology. To the contrary, he had
made important contributions to it. But later, apparently starting in the
1950s, he increasingly retreated from it—I had the impression that this
was mainly a reaction to some unqualified and in part even spiteful crit-
icism he had received meanwhile from certain psychologists. So, for
example, with his full agreement, if not by his request, the Max-Planck-
Institute at Seewiesen was not named “Institute of Animal Psychol-
ogy,” but “Institute of Behavioral Physiology,” and, although he stated
on several occasions that at least higher animals certainly have subjec-
tive experiences (to which he wished to limit the field of psychology),
he also stated that it was impossible to investigate them scientifically.
Hediger, however, pioneered just such an approach—later strongly
supported by Donald R. Griffin—and he was convinced that an inves-
tigation of the psychological phenomena was not only possible, but
absolutely necessary for a full understanding of the behavior of higher
animals. He regretted Lorenz’s agnostic attitude in this matter, and he
466 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

later distanced himself and his work expressis verbis from Lorenz and
his ethology.
In 1938, Lorenz had been among the founders of the Zeitschrift
für Tierpsychologie ( Journal of Animal Psychology, nowadays Ethol-
ogy), and later his name occurred on each volume as editor, together
with the name of Otto Koehler, another founder. Actually, however,
Koehler alone acted as the editor of this journal, and Lorenz had not
much to do with it. Moreover, after 1943, he obviously preferred to
publish in other journals, which I for one noticed with a certain amuse-
ment, since Koehler was a very demanding editor not only with respect
to the contents of a publication, but also with respect to its style, and he
rigorously corrected each manuscript he received, no matter who the
author was, and insisted that it be rewritten. Thus, it was not too
difficult to imagine what had happened. Similarly, of the two directors
of the institute at Seewiesen, Lorenz and von Holst, it was von Holst
who held the true leadership, up to his death. Maybe in both cases, it
was Lorenz’s occasional shyness that kept him from taking the first
position, but it may also be that he—to put it simply—was somewhat
too lazy to accept readily the load of work linked to it.
Again, strongly opposed to this shyness were the self-confidence
and the strong determination, based on an often ingenious intuition,
that Lorenz displayed on other occasions. I owe to the late Helmut
Hofer, a well-recognized anatomist and primatologist, some informa-
tion on Lorenz’s time as a student and his first activities as a lecturer at
the University of Vienna. In the early 1930s, Hofer had studied zool-
ogy and anatomy there together with Lorenz, whose Ph.D. thesis was
in comparative anatomy. In a small circle, mainly of his fellow students,
Lorenz often reported on his ethological research. As Hofer put it in a
humorous way, he and the others had come to conclude that ethology
was “the science of the greylag geese” or, even more precisely speaking,
“the science of the greylag goose Martina” since Lorenz had raised a
gosling named “Martina” from the egg, and he liked to present obser-
vations of this individual goose. However, he was strongly convinced
that there were aspects of general validity in them, and that things
“must be” the way he described them. Indeed, Lorenz’s broad knowl-
edge of animal behavior, which I mentioned previously, was, of course,
the result of many years of observation. In the beginning of his career,
he had started out from a base of facts that was relatively small—
although it certainly comprised more than the behavior of the greylag
goose Martina. Hofer was honest enough to admit how frequently it
turned out that Lorenz had been definitely right in his early, general
statements.
 KONRAD Z. LORENZ 467

My first encounter with Lorenz was in 1954, when he was still

stationed in Buldern, Germany, and it took an almost dramatic course.
At that time, I had just begun to study ethology, and I had been very
much on my own in this business, since lectures on the subject were
not given at the universities yet, and a good textbook did not exist
either. So I had just picked up a few aspects from some of Lorenz’s and
Tinbergen’s publications, and, as it happens easily to an autodidact, I
had not fully understood all the intentions of the authors. Particularly
with respect to Lorenz’s theoretical postulation of innate, releasing mech-
anisms (in his early papers he spoke of an “innate, releasing scheme”) as
well as with respect to the ways in which several different sign stimuli
(e.g., visual and acoustical or olfactory ones, or both) may add up to the
same effect, I had formed certain views without realizing that they
deviated from Lorenz’s concepts. In the very beginning of the said dis-
cussion with him, unfortunately, we came to talk about precisely these
things, and I expressed my view in all innocence. Moreover, I was
unaware that, not long before, Lorenz had had an apparently rather
severe “clash” over the same topic with a scientific opponent, a man
much more important than I was. Thus I, so to speak, had touched a
neuralgic point—and Lorenz just exploded.
After I had digested my first shock on his reaction and our con-
versation had returned to “quiet waters,” however, I tried to defend my
views using examples of the behavior of several gazelle species, oryx
and nilgai antelopes, greater and lesser kudu, and so on. Lorenz on his
part tried to convince me of his view with examples from greylag geese,
mallards, jackdaws, mouthbreeding cichlids, and so on. Later, we dis-
cussed other topics, but the “choice” of our examples remained more
or less the same. Late in the evening, when we smoked a final “pipe of
peace” and talked of some personal matters, Lorenz suddenly asked,
“Say, you always spoke of the behavior of gazelles and antelopes—how
do you know about it?” I answered that I had seen such things in zoo-
logical gardens, and that I presumed they were generally known. “By
no means,” Lorenz said, “You know what: write this stuff together and
send me the manuscript. Provided I find it good enough, I’ll pass it on
with a few words of recommendation to Otto Koehler, the editor [!] of
the Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie. Maybe he will accept it for publica-
tion.” Due to some unfavorable circumstances, it took me more than
two years to follow his suggestion, but eventually I did. So it was
Lorenz who supported my start in ethological research, and I guess
that I was not the only, or the first, young man whom he put into the
“right lane,” and who owes him gratitude for that. After this first
encounter, we remained on good terms all the time; however, I never
468 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS

felt as close to him as to several other ethologists whom I met during

my later life. Again, I guess that I was not the only one with whom it
went this way.
Even a very sketchy outline on Konrad Lorenz would be incom-
plete without mentioning his sense of humor and the charming stories
he liked to tell. When we met on another occasion, about ten years after
our first discussion, he first wished to hear something from me about
my studies on horned ungulates, but later, he apparently felt obliged to
contribute something from his own experience with such animals.
He told the following story. One day while in Hungary, he took a
lonely walk over the plains around Lake Balaton. There he met a herd
of the big white Hungarian cattle with their long horns. They were
cows with one bull among them, who began to paw the ground with
his front hooves and to dig in the soil with his horns. Even without
having conducted any research on bovid behavior, Lorenz realized that
this was a threat, and that obviously he was addressed. Since no tree or
other cover was near in the open plains, he tried to hide from the bull
behind a grazing cow and ducked deep. After a little while, he dared to
glimpse over the back of this cow, and he looked directly into the eyes
of the bull standing on the other side of the cow. At this moment, the
cow moved ahead, and Lorenz had to run quickly to the next cow to
take cover there. The bull followed, and this little game was repeated
several times. Meanwhile, however, people in a house far away, near the
horizon, had become aware of Lorenz’s situation, and two little “dots”
were moving toward him. In coming closer, the one “dot” turned out
to be a small, very old man, and the other “dot” to be a little, appar-
ently also very old dog. At a distance of perhaps thirty yards, the old
man pointed with his finger in the direction of the bull, and with a thin
voice he uttered something that sounded like “Bab—bab—bab.” The
old doggy made two little jumps toward the bull, and softly said
“Wow-wow,” and the bull turned to the side and moved away. Lorenz,
this huge, strong man, stood there and was saved. “It was a shame,” he
said in closing his story, “it was embarrassing.”

Elected 1974

Fritz R. Walther
Former Professor
Department of Wildlife
and Fisheries Sciences
Texas A&M University
 KONRAD Z. LORENZ 469

Biographical Data

1903 Konrad Zacharias Lorenz born in Vienna, on 7 November,

as the second son of the (famous and wealthy) physician
Prof. Dr. Adolf Lorenz and his wife, Emma (née Lecher).
1903–1921 Childhood and youth in Altenberg, Austria.
1921–1928 Study of medicine at the University of Vienna (one semes-
ter at Columbia University, New York). 1928 M.D.
1928–1933 Study of zoology at the University of Vienna. 1933 Ph.D.
1933–1939 Private scholar of ethology in Altenberg, temporary lec-
turer at the University of Vienna.
1940 Professor of comparative psychology at the University of
Königsberg, Germany.
1941–1944 (War) service in the German army as a physician
(psychiatrist).
1944–1948 Prisoner of war in Russia.
1949–1950 Leader of a research station of ethology (founded by him-
self) in Altenberg.
1951–1957 Director of the research station of behavioral physiology
under the protectorate of the Max-Planck-Society at Bul-
dern, Germany.
1958–1973 Director (up to 1963 together with Erich von Holst) of the
Max-Planck-Institute of behavioral physiology at Seewie-
sen, Germany. 1973 Nobel Prize for medicine (together
with Karl von Frisch and Nikolaas Tinbergen).
1973–1989 Leader of research stations of animal sociology and of
ethology under the protectorate of the Austrian Society of
Science in Altenberg.
1989 Death in Vienna on 27 February.