Náttúrufræðingurinn - 2013, Side 4

Náttúrufræðingurinn
4
Páll Hersteinsson
in memoriam
Páll Hersteinsson was a great naturalist. He had a
very special eye and saw things in a clear and dis-
tinct way, things that were not all that obvious. This
was probably one of the reasons why he developed
to be an outstanding scientist. Another reason was
his open mind, always willing to discuss other per-
spectives than his own.
He started his international studies in biophys-
ics in Dundee, Scot land. But his scientific sharp-
ness was trained at the University of Oxford
where he did his PhD thesis under supervision by
David Macdonald. Páll was one of the first PhD
student for David Macdonald and they became
great friends ever after that. The group at Oxford
then expanded with several other young scientists
with new ideas of research questions. That was the
period when Páll put the Arctic fox on the biologi-
cal world map; at that time no one was interested
in this fascinating little fox. The Arctic fox studies
by Páll were a source of inspiration to several other
scientists, among them me. Páll and I found that we
shared both an interest, but more important, a simi-
lar natural istic joy in the study of the Arctic fox. We
have spent tremendous amount of time together in
the field both in Sweden and in Iceland: observing
the foxes, trapping the foxes and even talking to the
foxes, he knew what the fox say. Páll was a master
in talking to foxes, it was a marvel watching him
when he would mimic the call of the mother fox so
the cubs came running out from the den believing
Náttúrufræðingurinn 83 (1–2), bls. 4–6, 2013