Johan Gustaf Hjalmar Kinberg, Swedish zoologist and veterinarian, studied at the University of Lund where he was awarded a degree in the natural sciences in 1844 and a doctoral degree in medicine in 1850. He worked for some time as a medical doctor before he was appointed as surgeon and zoologist of a Swedish scientific expedition around the world in the frigate Eugenie during 1851-1853. The ship travelled to Rio de Janeiro, around Cape Horn, to Panama, Hawaii, San Francisco, Tahiti, Sydney, Guam, Canton, Manilla, Singapore, Cape Town, and the Azores. The expedition visited Table Bay from 8 to 20 April 1852. During this time Kinberg collected land invertebrates in the vicinity of Cape Town. The voyage was described by C. Skogman in Fregatten Eugenies Resa omkring Jorden aren 1851-1853 (Frigate Eugenie's voyage around the world 1851-1853; Stockholm, 1854-1855). The collections made during the expedition are in the Riksmuseum, Stockholm, and were described in Kongliga Svenska Fregatten Eugenies Resa omkring Jorden under befäl av C.A. Virgin. Aren 1851-1853. Vetenskapliga Iakttagelser, edited by K. Svenska. Volume 2 (Zoologi) contains descriptions of Coleoptera (1858), Hemiptera (1859), Orthoptera (1860), Lepidoptera (1861), Hymenoptera (1868), Diptera (1868), Araneae (1910), and Polychaeta (1910) by various experts.
Upon his return from the expedition Kinberg was appointed prosector and lecturer in anatomy at the Karolinska Institute. In 1854 he was appointed temporary professor at at a veterinary establishment which became
the Swedish Veterinary Institute in 1867, where he was promoted to acting professor in 1856 and
full professor from 1859 to 1888. He was one the founding members of the Swedish Veterinary Association and its first chairman.
Kinberg submitted a zoological thesis (in Latin) at the University of Uppsala in 1863. He published several papers on new species of Annelida (ringed worms) during 1865-1867 and his description of the Annelida collected by the Eugenie expedition was published after his death in Uppsala in 1910. He also published (in Swedish) on veterinary medicine (1863, 1872), the skeletal anatomy of mammals (1869), and the teeth of swine (1875).