Adolf Naef

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Adolf Naef , born as Adolf Näf , (born May 1, 1883 in Herisau ; † May 11, 1949 in Zurich ) was a Swiss zoologist and paleontologist .

Life

After her father's death in 1889, Naef grew up with a sister and a brother under financially limited circumstances. He attended the Protestant teachers' seminar in Zurich-Unterstrass, then was a teacher and from 1904 studied natural sciences at the University of Zurich . He collected material on cephalopods for his dissertation at the zoological station in Naples and received his doctorate in 1909 from the zoologist Arnold Lang in Zurich, who was a close friend of Ernst Haeckel . He then continued his research in Naples and completed his habilitation in Zurich in 1914 (on the individual development of organic forms as a phylogenetic document). In 1922 he became an assistant professor in Zagreb, and from 1927 he was professor in Cairo. In 1929 he became head of the Faculty of Zoology there, but in 1940 he was demoted to visiting professors with other non-British foreign professors. Hopes for a professorship in Basel to succeed Friedrich Zschokke , who valued his cephalopod work, were dashed. He died of pancreatic cancer in a hospital in Zurich.

He is known for fundamental work on the anatomy, embryology and systematics of cephalopods (fossil and recent). He also dealt with systematic morphology, which he called idealistic morphology, as a forerunner and influence on the cladistics of Willi Hennig (1950).

Most recently he worked on a textbook on comparative anatomy, which was never published. His three cephalopod monographs have also been translated into English (Smithsonian Institution 1972, 2000).

He was a citizen of Niederhelfenschwil , Canton St. Gallen. His daughter from third marriage Claudia (* 1927) was married to the architect Eduard Neuenschwander .

literature

  • Olivier Rieppel, David M. Williams, Malte C. Ebach: Adolf Naef (1883-1949): On foundational concepts and principles of systematic morphology, Journal of the History of Biology, 50, 2012, 2-13
  • Olaf Breidbach: Post-Haeckelian Comparative Biology - Adolf Naef's Idealistic Morphology, Theory in Biosciences, 122, 2003, 174-193, abstract
  • Georgy S. Levit, Uwe Hossfeld , Lennart Olsson: Alexei Sewertzoff and Adolf Naef: Revising Haeckels biogenetic law. In: History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. 36, 2005, 357-370.

Fonts

  • Studies on the General Morphology of Molluscs, Results and Advances in Zoology, Part 1, Volume 3, 1911, 73-164, Part 2, Volume 3, 1913, 329-462, Part 3, Volume 6, 1924, 27-124
  • Idealistic morphology and phylogenetics (on the methodology of systematic morphology), Jena: G. Fischer 1919
  • The cephalopods, fauna and flora of the Gulf of Naples and the adjacent sea sections, Berlin: Friedländer 1921
  • The cephalopods (systematics), fauna and flora of the Gulf of Naples and the adjacent sea sections, Berlin: Friedländer 1923
  • The cephalopods (embryology), fauna and flora of the Gulf of Naples and the adjacent sea sections, Berlin: Friedländer 1928
  • The fossil cuttlefish. A paleozoological monograph, Jena: Gustav Fischer 1922
  • On morphology and tribal history, quarterly journal of the Natural Research Society Zurich, 70, 1925, 234-240
  • For a discussion of the concept of homology and its application in morphology, Biologisches Zentralblatt 46, 1926, 405-427.
  • About the archetypes of the anthropomorphic and the tribal history of the human skull, Die Naturwissenschaften 14, 1926, 445–452.
  • The definition of the term homology, Biologisches Zentralblatt 47, 1927, pp. 187-190.
  • Phylogeny of Animals, Handbook of Hereditary Science, Volume 3, Borntraeger 1931
  • General Morphology I, in L. Bolk u. a. Handbook of the comparative anatomy of vertebrates, Volume 1, Berlin 1931, 77-118
  • Physlogeny of Animals, in Dittler a. a. Concise Dictionary of Natural Sciences, Volume 7, 2nd edition, G. Fischer 1932, 3-17
  • The preliminary stages of the incarnation. A clear presentation of human tribal history and a critical consideration of its general requirements., Jena: G. Fischer 1933

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Organogese of Cölomsystems and the central blood vessels of Loligo, published in Jenaische Journal of Science 45, 1909, 221-266
personal data
SURNAME Naef, Adolf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Näf, Adolf (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss zoologist and paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1883
PLACE OF BIRTH Herisau
DATE OF DEATH May 11, 1949
Place of death Zurich