Gisela Rack

Gisela Rack (born on August 27, 1926 in Beuthen ; died on April 23, 2013 in Hamburg ) was a German acarologist and parasitologist . Her main research interests were mites and their role as storage pests , parasites and carriers of zoonoses .

Youth and Studies

Gisela Rack was the daughter of an Upper Silesian teacher and attended elementary and high school in her home town until she graduated from high school in 1944. Then she was drafted by the Reich Labor Service to work in a munitions factory. After the war ended, she lived in Goslar with her father, who was widowed in 1942, and three younger siblings . There she had to attend a grammar school again, because her secondary school diploma did not entitle her to university, and in 1946 she had to take the regular high school diploma. Since she had to look after her siblings, she was only able to begin studying biology, chemistry and physics at the University of Hamburg in 1949 . Among her professors were Berthold Klatt , Konstantin von Haffner Curt Kosswig and Herbert Weidner . Rack graduated in 1956 with a degree in biology. Her diploma thesis and her dissertation from 1958 treated spider mites and gall mites as plant parasites of considerable economic importance.

Research and Teaching

After her graduating, Rack was 1960 at the Zoological Museum of Hamburg hired. Soon she was the main curator of the collection "Pararthropoda ( velvet worms and water bears ) , Chelicerata and Myriapoda ". In the decades she worked for the museum, the collection has expanded considerably; the acarid collection is now one of the largest in the world. Rack's research focused on mites in their role as storage pests and carriers of zoonoses . She described 93 taxa , mostly mites, including several genera and the family Athyreacaridae .

Rack authored more than 120 publications alone or with colleagues. From 1977 until her retirement in 1991 she was editor of the Entomological Messages from the Zoological Museum Hamburg and the messages from the Hamburg Zoological Museum and Institute .

Dedication names

More than 30 invertebrate taxa were named after Gisela Rack , including the genera Rackia Mahunka , 1975 and Giselia Magowski , 1997 . This is mainly to mites, but also to the door snail rackae Euxina (Euxina) Brandt , 1961 to, Centipede Winklerostreptus rackae Demange , in 1969 , the Spiders Maijana rackae Lehtinen , 1981 from the family tetrablemmidae that tardigrades rackae Echiniscus Dastych , 1986 and the scorpion Lychas rackae Kovařík , 1997 .

Publications (selection)

Eriophyids as inhabitants of the tangled braids of two types of willow. Dissertation, University of Hamburg 1958 and in: Communications from the Hamburg Zoological Museum and Institute 1958, Volume 56, pp. 31-80, ISSN 0072-9612 .
(with Herbert Weidner) Tables de Determination of principaux ravageurs of denrées entreposées dans les pays chauds. German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), Rossdorf 1984, ISBN 3-88085-185-9 .
(with Herbert Weidner, only the Acariden) Determination tables of the storage pests and the domestic pests of Central Europe. 5th, revised and expanded edition. G. Fischer, Stuttgart 1993.

literature

Hans Strümpel and Hieronymus Dastych: Dr. rer. nat. Gisela Rack in memory. In: Entomological messages from the Zoological Museum Hamburg 2015, Volume 17, No. 194, pp. 195–199, online PDF , 807 kB.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c Hans Strümpel and Hieronymus Dastych: Dr. rer. nat. Gisela Rack in memory, p. 196.
^ Gerd Alberti: Tribute to the Past - Notes on the History of Acarology in Germany. In: Phytophaga 2004, Volume 14, pp. 13-56, ISSN 0393-8131 .
↑ Hans Strümpel and Hieronymus Dastych: Dr. rer. nat. Gisela Rack zum Gedächtnis, pp. 197–199 ( Appendix 1. List of invertebrates (mainly mites) that Dr. G. Rack (co-) described as new taxa ).
↑ Herbert Weidner: The Entomological Collections of the Zoological Institute and Zoological Museum of the University of Hamburg. In: Communications from the Hamburg Zoological Museum and Institute 1977, Volume 74, pp. 77–138, here p. 135, online PDF , 10.1 MB.
↑ Hans Strümpel and Hieronymus Dastych: Dr. rer. nat. Gisela Rack in memory, p. 197.
↑ Hans Strümpel and Hieronymus Dastych: Dr. rer. nat. Gisela Rack zum Gedächtnis, p. 199 ( Appendix 2. Invertebrate taxa dedicated to Dr. G. Rack ).
↑ František Kovařík: Revision of the genera Lychas and Hemilychas, with descriptions of six new species (Scorpiones: Buthidae). In: Acta Societatis Zoologicae Bohemoslovenicae 1997, Volume 61, No. 39, pp. 311-371, here p. 348, online PDF , 2.7 MB.

personal data
SURNAME	Rack, Gisela
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German arachnologist and parasitologist
DATE OF BIRTH	August 27, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH	Bytom
DATE OF DEATH	April 23, 2013
Place of death	Hamburg

[Strümpel_196-1] Hans Strümpel and Hieronymus Dastych: Dr. rer. nat. Gisela Rack in memory, p. 196.

[Alberti-2] Gerd Alberti: Tribute to the Past - Notes on the History of Acarology in Germany. In: Phytophaga 2004, Volume 14, pp. 13-56, ISSN 0393-8131 .

[Strümpel_desc-3] Hans Strümpel and Hieronymus Dastych: Dr. rer. nat. Gisela Rack zum Gedächtnis, pp. 197–199 ( Appendix 1. List of invertebrates (mainly mites) that Dr. G. Rack (co-) described as new taxa ).

[Weidner-4] Herbert Weidner: The Entomological Collections of the Zoological Institute and Zoological Museum of the University of Hamburg. In: Communications from the Hamburg Zoological Museum and Institute 1977, Volume 74, pp. 77–138, here p. 135, online PDF , 10.1 MB.

[Strümpel_197-5] Hans Strümpel and Hieronymus Dastych: Dr. rer. nat. Gisela Rack in memory, p. 197.

[Strümpel_ded-6] Hans Strümpel and Hieronymus Dastych: Dr. rer. nat. Gisela Rack zum Gedächtnis, p. 199 ( Appendix 2. Invertebrate taxa dedicated to Dr. G. Rack ).

[Kovařík-7] František Kovařík: Revision of the genera Lychas and Hemilychas, with descriptions of six new species (Scorpiones: Buthidae). In: Acta Societatis Zoologicae Bohemoslovenicae 1997, Volume 61, No. 39, pp. 311-371, here p. 348, online PDF , 2.7 MB.