Karl Wilhelm Verhoeff

Karl Wilhelm Verhoeff (born November 25, 1867 in Soest , † December 6, 1944 in Munich ) was a German zoologist and entomologist . He was considered an important German expert on centipedes , millipedes and woodlice .

Life

Verhoeff was the son of a pharmacist in Soest, graduated from high school there in 1889 and studied zoology in Bonn with a doctorate in 1893. He was a private scholar for most of his life and only employed at the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin from 1900 to 1905 . After the First World War he lived in cramped financial circumstances and had to sell many copies of his collection, so that holotypes of his many first descriptions were also scattered. A large part of his collection is in Munich (Zoological State Collection) and Berlin (Natural History Museum). His collecting trips (for example to the French Riviera, Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia and Greece) were partly financed by the Prussian Academy of Sciences .

He wrote 671 publications (including extensive monographs) in which he described thousands of new taxa (over a thousand species of millipedes alone). His estate and his collection went to the Zoological State Collection in Munich (it was very extensive, but inadequately organized, cataloged and conserved). He also worked on the collections of myriapods from other scientists (for example from Japan, India, South America, Australia). He also wrote natural history books for young people.

He was married and had two daughters and a son who died in Russia in 1942. His wife died in 1937 after an operation. Verhoeff died in Munich as a result of an Allied bombing raid.

In 1933 he received the silver Leibniz Medal of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. In 1943 he received the golden doctoral diploma in Bonn on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his doctorate. In 1942 he became a member of the Leopoldina .

Fonts

• The diplopods of Germany, edited in summary, 8 parts, Leipzig: Winter 1911 to 1914
• Walks through the miracles of living together, Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft 1925
• Strange journeys of discovery by the ants Emse and industriousness and their consequences: A story for the more mature youth and for all nature lovers, Leipzig, Quelle and Meyer 1926

literature

• Karl Wilhelm Verhoeff: Self-presentation of a German zoologist. 1867–1945 (= portrayals of the lives of German naturalists. 9, ISSN  0075-8418 ). With a list of his publications by Gisela Mauermayer. Barth, Leipzig 1962.

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Wilhelm Verhoeff in the catalog of the German National Library
• The legacy of Karl Wilhelm Verhoeff, GBIF
• Image on a website with eminent Myriapod researchers