Jakob Behrens

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Jakob (James) Behrens, 1874
Heinrich Behrens (left) with his brother Jakob Behrens (around 1845)

Jakob Behrens , also James Behrens (born June 30, 1824 in Lübeck , † March 6, 1897 in San José (California) ) was a German-American businessman and entomologist .

Life

Jakob Behrens was the son of the Lübeck merchant and senator Jacob Behrens (1791-1852). He attended the Katharineum in Lübeck , which he completed in 1841. After his father's death, he emigrated to the USA in 1853. He opened a commercial store in San Francisco .

Even as a schoolboy, Behrens was enthusiastic about the field of entomology from Carl Julius Milde . Upon arriving in the United States, he became one of the first systematic collectors in California, built a large collection, and became an expert in the field of lepidoptera . He has published several articles in professional journals and was a member of various scientific societies in the USA and Europe. He had many of his pieces determined by Augustus Radcliffe Grote and Alpheus Spring Packard .

Lübeck Museum am Dom in the 1890s

In 1883 he donated his collection, which had a high scientific value due to the numerous original specimens and types incorporated into it, to the Natural History Museum in Lübeck, which was managed and under construction by his friend Heinrich Lenz , for which the Society for the Promotion of Charitable Activities awarded him its Golden Medal . In a report for the 67th Assembly of German Naturalists and Doctors in 1895:

" What J. Behrens collected himself over the course of more than thirty years or brought together through his numerous exchange connections with the most important North American coleopterologists and lepidopterists, such as Horn, Le Conte, WH Edwards, Cresson, Henry Edwards, Packard, Grote, French and others, a few years ago he made the same as a present to our museum, in true affection to his hometown. The beetles are usually present in whole rows, determined and precisely provided with locations. Among the butterflies, not only the day butterflies and sphingids, like the large species in general, are almost entirely present, but the smaller noctuas and geometrids, mostly determined by Packard and Grote, are particularly well represented. The North American, in particular Californian beetles and butterflies are likely to be as well represented in few museums as in ours. "

The collection was probably destroyed along with the museum during the air raid on Lübeck in 1942.

Behrens died without children; There was a legal dispute over his inheritance, which went as far as the Supreme Court of California, in which his siblings, the Lübeck numismatist Heinrich Behrens and his sister Augusta, asserted themselves as legal heirs against the testamentary heiress.

Dedication names

The following are named after him:

  • Behrens' silverspot butterfly ( Speyeria zerene behrensii), an endangered species of butterfly
  • Phymatopus behrensii , a root drill

literature

  • Behrens, James , in: Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900 ( full text on Wikisource , English)
  • Edward M. Ehrhorn: Obituary. In: Entomological News. 8 (1898), p. 128
  • The American Naturalist , 33/1 (1899), p. 182.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Year of death according to the annual report of the Natural History Museum in Lübeck for the year 1897. Lübeck: Rathgens 1898, p. 4; in other sources often 1898
  2. ^ Emil Ferdinand Fehling : On the Lübeck Council Line 1814-1914 , Max Schmidt, Lübeck 1915, No. 40.
  3. ^ Annual report of the Natural History Museum in Lübeck for the year 1897. Lübeck: Rathgens 1898, p. 3f
  4. ↑ Ehrhorn (lit.)
  5. ↑ Annual report of the Natural History Museum in Lübeck for 1897. Lübeck: Rathgens 1898, p. 4
  6. ↑ Lübeck: Festschrift that part takers of the 67th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians, dedicated by the doctor Lichen Association and the Natural History Society of Luebeck. Lübeck: Rahtgens 1895, p. 337
  7. ^ Reports of Cases Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of California. Volume 130, San Francisco 1906, pp. 416-422 ( digitized version )
  8. ↑ Behrens' Silverspot Butterfly (Speyeria zerene behrensii) 5-Year Review: Summary and Evaluation (PDF; 423 kB), accessed on October 12, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Behrens, Jakob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Behrens, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American businessman and entomologist
DATE OF BIRTH June 30, 1824
PLACE OF BIRTH Lübeck
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 1897
Place of death San Jose (California)