Fritz Haas (zoologist)

Fritz Haas (born January 4, 1886 in Frankfurt am Main , † December 26, 1969 in Hollywood , Florida ) was a German-American malacologist . His main research areas were terrestrial and freshwater snails, as well as river and pond mussels (Unionidae).

Life

Haas studied biology with Oskar Böttger and Wilhelm Kobelt . After his doctorate as Dr. phil. under the direction of Otto Bütschli he was from 1911 to 1936 curator at the department for invertebrates at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt am Main. From 1920 to 1936 he was editor of the journal Archiv für Molluskenkunde . On June 30, 1936, he was dismissed under National Socialist legislation. In 1937 he emigrated to Brazil and in 1938 he settled in Chicago , where he worked for a Jewish welfare organization. In 1944 he became a US citizen. From 1938 to 1959 he was a curator at the Department of Invertebrates at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. In 1950 he was President of the American Malacological Union.

Haas made extensive field excursions in Norway (1910), in the Pyrenees, in Spain, in France (1914-1919), in southern Africa (1931-32; as part of the Hans Schomburgk expedition) and in America (Brazil, Bermuda, Cuba, Canada).

In 1969 Haas published the monograph Superfamilia Unionacea from the series Das Tierreich by Willi Hennig, which is considered his standard work. Here 837 valid species in 226 genera and subgenera are listed. In the same year the work Treatise on invertebrate paleontology: Superfamily Unionacea Fleming, 1828 , which is based on a manuscript from 1950, was published. Haas described 77 genera and 308 species and subspecies from several families, including Bothriembryontidae , Euconulidae , Unionidae and Bythinellidae .

Honors and dedication names

In 1954 Haas received the Cretzschmar Medal from the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research . The Indian zoologist Baini Prashad named the marsh snail species Cipangopaludina haasi in 1928 and the Danish malacologist Jørgen Knudsen named the clam shell species Cuspidaria haasi after Fritz Haas in 1970 . In 1936, Lore Rose David named the African freshwater fish Enteromius haasianus after Fritz Haas.

literature

• Mordecai Gabriel: Fritz Haas. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . Edited by Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, 2nd Edition, Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. Biography In Context, accessed May 8, 2018.
• Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945. Edited by the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem. Saur, Munich 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 135.
• Alan Solem : Fritz Haas (1886–1969) In: Journal of Conchology, Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1970, p. 182
• Fritz Haas † In: Nature and Museum, Senckenbergische Naturforschende Gesellschaft, 1970, p. 148
• Adolf Zilch : Fritz Haas (1886–1969) Archiv für Molluskenkunde No. 100 (1/2), 1970, pp. 1–17
• Alan Solem: New molluscan taxa and scientific writings of Fritz Haas . Fieldiana 53 (2), 1967, pp. 71-144. (Biography and bibliography)
• Haas, Fritz In: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933–1945 . Volume 2.1. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , pp. 444f.