Fritz Müller (zoologist)

Fritz Mueller

Fritz Müller (actually Friedrich Müller; born May 8, 1834 in Basel ; † March 10, 1895 there ) was a Swiss doctor and zoologist.

Live and act

After initial studies in the humanities and theology , Müller devoted himself to human medicine from 1852 . From 1852 to 1854 he studied at the University of Basel and then in Würzburg and Prague before graduating in 1857 with a doctorate in medicine . After one and a half years of additional training in Vienna, Berlin and Paris, he returned to Basel and opened his own medical practice. He was an active member of the Basel Medical Society and in 1860 he was a co-founder of the local medical society, of which he became president in 1876. In 1872 he gave up his practice and assumed responsibility for health checks for the Basel city parliament. From 1868 to 1869 he gave zoological lectures at the University of Basel, but most of his official duties after 1872 were official in nature. From 1875 he began to work for the Natural History Collection Basel. His research included herpetology , crustaceans and spiders . From 1873 onwards, Müller was plagued by chronic illnesses, which necessitated convalescence stays in the Mediterranean area during the winter months.

Müller's few herpetological writings were published between 1877 and 1895. His main work, a catalog of amphibians and reptiles in the Natural History Museum Basel (1878), was followed by seven supplementary volumes between 1880 and 1892. An eighth and last volume was written in 1901 by Müller's colleague Ehrenfried Schenkel . This work mainly describes collections that were assembled by Swiss overseas, especially in tropical countries. Many new taxa described by Müller for the first time, including oreophryne celebensis , Calotes ceylonensis , Cynisca leonina , Cyrtodactylus fumosus , the equatorial spitting cobra ( Naja sumatrana ) Nessia sarasinorum , the collar-dwarf Natter ( Platyceps collaris ) sarasinorum Pseudorabdion , Rhinoplocephalus bicolor , Scincella inconspicua , Sphenomorphus celebense , Sphenomorphus textum , Stenocercus azureus and the Central American dwarf boa ( Ungaliophis continentalis ). The most famous collections include those made by the Swiss naturalists Paul Sarasin and Fritz Sarasin on Ceylon and Celebes . Müller wrote his last publication on this in 1894.

literature

• Kraig Adler (1989): Contributions to the History of Herpetology , Society for the study of amphibians and reptiles.

Web link

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