Johann August Ephraim Goeze (; 28 May 1731 – 27 June 1793) was a German

zoologist 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 ...

, born in

Aschersleben Aschersleben () is a town in the Salzlandkreis district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated approximately 22 km east of Quedlinburg, and 45 km northwest of Halle (Saale). Geography Aschersleben lies near the confluence of the ...

. He is known for the discovery of

tardigrade Tardigrades (), known colloquially as water bears or moss piglets, are a phylum of eight-legged segmented micro-animals. They were first described by the German zoologist Johann August Ephraim Goeze in 1773, who called them Kleiner Wasserbär ...

s, also called water bears. He was the son of Johann Heinrich and Catherine Margarete (née Kirchhoff). He studied

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

University of Halle Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (german: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg), also referred to as MLU, is a public, research-oriented university in the cities of Halle and Wittenberg and the largest and oldest university ...

. He married Leopoldine Maria Keller in 1770, by whom he had four children. In 1751, he became a pastor in Aschersleben, in

Quedlinburg Quedlinburg () is a town situated just north of the Harz mountains, in the district of Harz in the west of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. As an influential and prosperous trading centre during the early Middle Ages, Quedlinburg became a center of i ...

, and later of in

in 1762, finally becoming first deacon of the seminary of Quedlinburg in 1787. He died in Quedlinburg. He did much work with aquatic

invertebrates Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

, particularly

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs of ...

s and

worm Worms are many different distantly related bilateral animals that typically have a long cylindrical tube-like body, no limbs, and no eyes (though not always). Worms vary in size from microscopic to over in length for marine polychaete wor ...

s. In 1773, he was the first to describe

s. In 1784, Goeze perceived the similarities between the heads of tapeworms found in the human intestinal tract and the invaginated heads of ''

Cysticercus cellulosae Cysticercus (pl. cysticerci) is a scientific name given to the young tapeworms (larvae) belonging to the genus '' Taenia''. It is a small, sac-like vesicle resembling a bladder; hence, it is also known as bladder worm. It is filled with fluid, in ...

'' in pigs.

Works

*Goeze, J. A. E. 1776. Verzeichnisse der Namen von Insecten und Wurmern, welche in dem Rosel, Kleemann und De Geer vorkommen. '' Naturforscher'' 9: 61-78

776 __NOTOC__ Year 776 ( DCCLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 776 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era ...

81-85. *with

Charles De Geer Baron Charles de Geer (the family is usually known as De Geer with a capitalized "De" and is pronounced "de yer"); Finspång in Risinge 30 January 1720 – Stockholm 7 March 1778) was a Swedish industrialist and entomologist. Life De Geer, w ...

''Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Insekten. Aus dem Französischen übersetzt und mit Anmerkungen hrsg. von Johann August Ephraim Goeze.'' Leipzig: J. C. Müller, 1776–1783. *Goeze, J. A. E. 1782. Des Herrn Baron Karl Degeer Koniglichen Hofmarschalls .... Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Insekten aus dem Franzosischen ubersetzt und mit Anmerkungen herausgegeben. Volume 6. 200 pp., 30 pls. Raspe, Nurnberg. *Goeze, J. A. E. 1783. Entomologische Beyträge zu des Ritter Linné zwölften Ausgabe des Natursystems. Dritten Theiles vierter Band. - pp. I-XX, 1-178. Leipzig. (Weidmanns Erben und Reich).

References

Sources

Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB, german: Universal German Biography) is one of the most important and comprehensive biographical reference works in the German language. It was published by the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Ac ...

(ADB). Band 9, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, S. 53
online
* Allen G. Debus (dir.) (1968). ''World Who’s Who in Science. A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Scientists from Antiquity to the Present.'' Marquis-Who’s Who (Chicago) : xvi + 1855 p. 1731 births 1793 deaths German lepidopterists People from the Principality of Halberstadt University of Halle alumni People from Aschersleben 18th-century German zoologists {{Germany-zoologist-stub