Jacob Boll (28 May 1828 – 29 September 1880) was a Swiss naturalist and entomologist especially noted for his exploration of the Texas Red Beds. Boll was born 1828 in

Würenlos Würenlos is a municipality in the district of Baden in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland. It lies north of the river Limmat, next to the canton of Zürich, located in the Limmat Valley (German: ''Limmattal''). Geography Würenlos has an are ...

, Switzerland, and educated as a pharmacist in Switzerland and

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Established as a naturalist, he turned his attention to

microlepidoptera Microlepidoptera (micromoths) is an artificial (i.e., unranked and not monophyletic) grouping of moth families, commonly known as the 'smaller moths' (micro, Lepidoptera). These generally have wingspans of under 20 mm, and are thus harder to ...

and established contact with

Philipp Christoph Zeller Philipp Christoph Zeller (8 April 1808 – 27 March 1883) was a German entomologist. Zeller was born at Steinheim an der Murr, Württemberg, two miles from Marbach, the birthplace of Schiller. The family moved to Frankfurt (Oder) where Philipp ...

. In 1856, his parents and siblings travelled to Texas and joined the

La Réunion LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...

socialist utopian community. The Bolls left the commune after the first year and established a farm in Dallas near the current Baylor Medical Center. Jacob visited his family in Texas circa 1867, and then returned to Switzerland. In 1869 he met with Louis Agassiz at Harvard, proceeding to Texas to collect animals for the

Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan cler ...

. Returning to Switzerland he became a professional collector, working for Eduard Dämle and the Swiss government. Similar arrangements were made with Agassiz and in 1870 he collected insects in

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

. Boll settled permanently in the U.S.A. after his wife Henriette (Humbel)s' death in 1873. He lived in

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

. In 1878 he collected

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last ...

vertebrate fossils in northwest Texas for Edward Drinker Cope of Philadelphia. These collections are now in the American Museum of Natural History. Boll published a number of papers in botany, entomology, and geology. He was a Member of the

Boston Society of Natural History The Boston Society of Natural History (1830–1948) in Boston, Massachusetts, was an organization dedicated to the study and promotion of natural history. It published a scholarly journal and established a museum. In its first few decades, the s ...

and the Academia Caesarea Leopoldino-Carolina Naturae Curiosorum. In 1880, Boll died in Wilbarger County,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

, United States. He was laid to rest at Greenwood Cemetery in

He is not to be confused with Ernst Friedrich August Boll (1817–1868) also an entomologist and also specialising in Lepidoptera.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boll, Jacob Swiss lepidopterists 1828 births 1880 deaths

Further reading

References