Alfred Otto Herz (14 October 1856

Hoyerswerda Hoyerswerda () or Wojerecy () is a major district town in the district of Bautzen in the German state of Saxony. It is located in the Sorbian settlement area of Upper Lusatia, a region where some people speak the Sorbian language in addition to G ...

, Silesia – 12 July 1905) was a German

entomologist Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...

who specialised in

Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) is an order (biology), order of insects that includes butterfly, butterflies and moths (both are called lepidopterans). About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera are described, in 126 Family (biology), families and 46 Taxonomic r ...

and

Coleoptera Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

. He was employed as a collector and preparator by the

Otto Staudinger Otto Staudinger (2 May 1830 – 13 October 1900) was a German entomologist and a natural history dealer considered one of the largest in the world specialising in the collection and sale of insects to museums, scientific institutions, and indi ...

Andreas Bang-Haas Andreas Bang-Haas (6 December 1846 – 7 February 1925) was a Danish entomologist and insect dealer. Bang-Haas was born in Horsens. In 1879 he entered into the business of the insect dealer Otto Staudinger. He married Staudinger's daughter ...

insect dealership in Dresden. Otto Herz went on entomological expeditions to

Transcaucasia The South Caucasus, also known as Transcaucasia or the Transcaucasus, is a geographical region on the border of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, straddling the southern Caucasus Mountains. The South Caucasus roughly corresponds to modern Arme ...

Buchara Bukhara ( Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara for at least five millennia, and the city h ...

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and wes ...

, "Jakutien" (on a

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, ...

-collecting expedition),

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

Hainan Hainan (, ; ) is the smallest and southernmost province of the People's Republic of China (PRC), consisting of various islands in the South China Sea. , the largest and most populous island in China,The island of Taiwan, which is slightly l ...

, and

Siam Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 mi ...

partly funded by Nicholas Mikhailovich Romanoff who also purchased material directly from Herz or through Staundinger. Many of the Lepidoptera collected by Herz were described by

Sergei Alphéraky Sergei Nikolaevich Alphéraky (1850–1918) (sometimes Alphéraki or Alferaki) was a Russian ornithologist and entomologist who specialised in Lepidoptera. Sergei Alphéraky was born into the noble Greek family of Alferakis and was the brothe ...

. His collected insects are in the

Zoological Museum of the Russian Academy of Science Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and dis ...

(including the Romanoff insects) other than that sold elsewhere by the dealership.

Tribute

The fish '' Pungtungia herzi'' Herzenstein, 1892 was named in honor of Herz, who collected the type specimen.

References

Sources

* Kusnezov, N. J. 1906: erz, A. O.''Ann. Mus. Zool. Petersburg'' 11 I-V. * Kusnezov, N. J. 1905: erz, A. O.''Russk. ent. obozr'' 5 311-312. {{DEFAULTSORT:Herz, Alfred Otto German lepidopterists 1905 deaths 1856 births German collectors 19th-century German scientists 20th-century German scientists People from Hoyerswerda Silesian-German people