Otto Friedrich Müller

Otto Friedrich Müller

Otto Friedrich Müller, also Mueller (March 11, 1730 - December 26, 1784) was a Danish naturalist.

Achievements

Müller was the author of Zoologiae Danicae Prodromus (1776). This was the first survey of the fauna of Norway and Denmark, and classified over three thousand local species. He was one of the first to study microorganisms, and established the classification of several groups of animals, including Hydrachnellae, Entomostraca and Infusiora.

He was a member of the Academia Caesarea Leopoldina, the Royal Scandinavian Academy of Sciences, the Paris Academy of Sciences and the Berlin Society of Friends of Natural Science and had a lasting impact on zoological studies across Europe . He was a pioneer as a field naturalist, and established the classification of several groups of animals (Hydrachnellae, Entomostraca, and Infusoria) unknown to Linnaeus.

Works

Zoologiae Danicae Prodromus, seu Animalium Daniae et Norvegiae Indigenarum characteres, nomina, et synonyma imprimis popularium.... Copenhagen, Hallager for the author. (1776)

Zoologiae Danicae Prodromus, was the first manual on this topic (Danish and Noorwegian Zoology) and was for many years the most comprehensive. It was planned as the beginning of a large illustrated fauna, but only one volume appeared before Müller's death; the following volumes the last published in 1806 prepared by Søren Abildgaard and Martin Heinrich Rathke, amongst others, never reached the standard of the Flora Danica begun by Georg Christian Oeder" Dictionary of Scientific Biography (DSB). 16 Bde. New York 1981.

Works

Fauna Insectorum Fridrichsdalina. Lipsiae : Hafniae et Gleditsch xxiv 96 pp.(1764).

Insects described by Müller

External links

• [1]--Enumeratio ac Descriptio Libellularum agri Fridrichsdalensis and Favna insectorvm Fridrichsdalina at GDZ Göttigen

work in progress

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