Karl Hoffmann was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 and naturalist

Natural history

Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...

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Hoffmann was born in Stettin and studied at Berlin University. In 1853 he travelled to Costa Rica

Costa Rica

Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....

 with Alexander von Frantzius

Alexander von Frantzius

Alexander von Frantzius was a German physician and naturalist.Frantzius collected natural history specimens in Brazil from 1849–1853 and Costa Rica in 1853, many of which he sent to Jean Cabanis at the Berlin Museum. He set up a pharmacy in San José in Costa Rica, employing José Castulo Zeledón as...

 to collect natural history specimens. He served as a doctor in the Costa Rican army during the invasion of William Walker in 1856. He died of typhoid in Puntarenas

Puntarenas

Puntarenas is the capital and largest city in the province Puntarenas, Costa Rica, at the Pacific coast. The eponymous and oddly shaped province has its largest section in the South, far from the capital.Some 100,000 live in the city and close towns...

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Hoffmann is commemorated in the names of a number of animals, including Hoffmann's Two-toed Sloth

Hoffmann's Two-toed Sloth

Hoffmann's two-toed sloth is a species of sloth from Central and South America. It is a solitary nocturnal and arboreal animal, found in mature and secondary rainforests and deciduous forests...

, Hoffmann's Woodpecker

Hoffmann's Woodpecker

Hoffmann's Woodpecker, Melanerpes hoffmannii, is a resident breeding bird from southern Honduras south to Costa Rica. It is a common species on the Pacific slopes, locally as high as 2150 m. It is expanding on the Caribbean slope, aided by deforestation...

 Melanerpes hoffmannii, the Sulphur-winged Parakeet

Sulphur-winged Parakeet

The Sulphur-winged Parakeet , also known as the Hoffmann's Conure in aviculture, is a medium-small parrot endemic to humid highland forests and woodlands in Costa Rica and western Panama. It occurs up to 3000 m asl, and locally down to 1300 m in the wet season...

Pyrrhura hoffmanni and a millipede Chondrodesmus hoffmanni (Peters, 1864).