Max Beier

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the actor see: Max Beier (actor)

Max Walter Peter Beier (born April 6, 1903 in Spittal an der Drau , † July 4, 1979 in Vienna ) was an Austrian zoologist .

Life

Max Beier was the son of the railway engineer Julius Beier and his wife Marie, nee Mitis. From 1923 he studied zoology at the University of Vienna , among others with Franz Werner (1867-1939) and Berthold Hatschek . He received his doctorate on July 12, 1927 under Karl Grobben with the doctoral thesis Comparative Investigations on the Central Nervous System of Coleopteras for Dr. phil. On November 1st of the same year he began his scientific work in the zoological department of the Natural History Museum in Vienna, where he became a student of Anton Handlirsch . In 1960 he was Secretary General at the 11th International Congress of Entomology in Vienna. In 1961 he was appointed professor. From 1963 he headed the zoological department of the museum until he retired in 1968. When the Austrian Entomological Society was founded on September 5, 1975 in Lunz am See , Beier was its first president. He remained scientifically active until his death in 1979.

Beier was married to Irmgard Zeitheim since 1931. The marriage resulted in two sons and a daughter.

power

Max Beier was a very prolific scientist who wrote about 400 scientific publications, including nearly 250 on pseudoscorpions . He was considered an expert on fishing horrors (Mantodea). It is thanks to him that the Natural History Museum Vienna today has the world's largest collection of mantodeas. He also dealt with jumping terrors (Orthoptera) and beetles , especially their larvae . His work covers taxonomy , morphology , physiology and ecology . He also made significant contributions to zoological compilations such as Heinrich Georg Bronn's Klassen und Ordnungs des Tierreichs , Willy Kükenthal's Handbuch der Zoologie and Paul Schulze's Biology of Animals in Germany . He was editor of the Orthopterorum Catalogus .

His findings on pseudoscorpions as natural enemies of mites with regard to their useful properties for bee colonies have gained new topicality.

Honors

Max Beier's work has been recognized by numerous honorary memberships and awards. He was a corresponding member of the Sociedad Entomologica Argentina and the Finnish Entomological Society and an honorary member of the Dutch Entomological Society. The German Entomological Society awarded him the Fabricius Medal in 1967 for the best German-language entomological publication of 1966.

On June 4, 1970, the University of Innsbruck made him an honorary doctorate . On September 20, 1977, at the VII International Symposium on Entomofaunistics, he was awarded the Medal of Honor for Outstanding Achievements in Entomofaunistics . Eduard Wagner dedicated several new species to him, for example the soft bugs Dimorphocoris beieri Wagner 1965 and Orthotylus beieri Wagner 1942 as well as Artheneis beieri Wagner 1963 from the Artheneidae family .

literature

• Maximilian Fischer, Gerth Rokitansky, Alfred Kaltenbach: Hofrat Director Professor Dr. Max Beier on his 65th birthday (PDF; 1.5 MB). In: Annals of the Natural History Museum in Vienna 72, 1968, ISSN  0083-6133 , pp. 3-19.
• Alfred Kaltenbach: Hofrat Professor Dr. Max Beier in memory (PDF; 1.7 MB). In: Annals of the Natural History Museum in Vienna 83, 1980, ISSN  0083-6133 , pp. 763-781.
• Volker Mahnert : Professor Dr Max Beier (1903–1979) . In: Bulletin of the British Arachnological Society 5, 1979, ISSN  0524-4994 , pp. 115-116.
• Erich Seydel: Hofrat Professor Dr. Dr. hc Max Beier in memory . In: Anzeiger fur pest science , plant protection, environmental protection 52, 1979, ISSN  0340-7330 , pp. 173-175.

Web links

• Literature by and about Max Beier in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Max Beier  in the German Digital Library
• Prof. Dr. phil. Max Walter Peter Beier on ZOBODAT

Individual evidence

1. ↑ List of publications in: Alfred Kaltenbach: Hofrat Professor Dr. Max Beier in memory . In: Annals of the Natural History Museum in Vienna . Volume 83, 1980, pp. 763-781.
2. ↑ Max Beier: The book scorpion, a welcome guest of the bee colonies (PDF; 389 kB). In: Austrian beekeeper . Volume 1, 1951, pp. 209-211.