Niklas Westring (13 November 1797, in Gothenburg – 28 January 1882) was a Swedish

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 ...

and

arachnologist Arachnology is the scientific study of arachnids, which comprise spiders and related invertebrates such as scorpions, pseudoscorpions, and harvestmen. Those who study spiders and other arachnids are arachnologists. More narrowly, the study of sp ...

. He started out with the intention to study medicine but this was frustrated by the death of his father. His full-time profession from 1816 was as a customs officer in Gothenburg, where he was customs administrator from 1834 to 1856. When he retired he spent most of his time working on natural history, especially from 1840 to 1862, during which time he also became a conservator at the Göteborg Natural History Museum. He is best known for his book ''Araneae suecicae descriptae'' in 1862 in which he described 308 species of spider found in Sweden. Of these, 124 had already been described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

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 ...

and

Carl Jakob Sundevall Carl Jakob Sundevall (22 October 1801, Högestad – 2 February 1875) was a Swedish zoologist. Sundevall studied at Lund University, where he became a Ph.D. in 1823. After traveling to East Asia, he studied medicine, graduating as Doctor of Med ...

. He appears to have been something of a mentor to

Tamerlan Thorell Tord Tamerlan Teodor Thorell (3 May 1830 – 22 December 1901) was a Sweden, Swedish arachnologist. Thorell studied spiders with Giacomo Doria at the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale de Genoa. He corresponded with other arachnologists, such as Oc ...

who lived in Gothernborg until he went to university at

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...

and was familiar with Westring's collection of spiders and how to identify them since he had been a schoolboy. He was one of the founders and most active promoters of the

Göteborg City Museum The Museum of Gothenburg ( sv, Göteborgs stadsmuseum) is a local history museum located in the city centre of Gothenburg in western Sweden. It is located in the East India House ( sv, Ostindiska huset), originally built as the Swedish East Indi ...

, serving on its board from 1840 to 1874. He became a member of the

Royal Society of Sciences and Letters in Gothenburg The Royal Society of Arts and Sciences in Gothenburg ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskaps- och Vitterhets-Samhället i Göteborg, abbreviated KVVS and often known simply as ''Samhället'') is a Swedish Royal Academy. Its predecessor was founded in Gothenburg ...

in 1843, a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...

in 1863 and several foreign entomological associations. Westring was married to Bridget Christina Thorsell but was a widower when he died. He did not have any children but appears to have fostered a relative of his wife, Johan Peterson, to whom he left the bulk of his estate. When he died he bequeathed his collections of specimens and library to the Göteborg Natural History Museum. He also left a cabinet made of mahogany which contained some specimens, including many

type specimens In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes t ...

, to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, this cabinet is now in the

Swedish Museum of Natural History The Swedish Museum of Natural History ( sv, Naturhistoriska riksmuseet, literally, the National Museum of Natural History), in Stockholm, is one of two major museums of natural history in Sweden, the other one being located in Gothenburg. The ...

Publications

This is an incomplete list. *Westring (N.) (Nicolas), 1843. - (Om' Stridulationsorganet hos Asagena serratipes Schrk.). Nat. Tidsskr., 4, pp. 349–360. *Westring (N.), 1847. - Bidrag till Historien om Insekternes Stridulations-Organer. Nat. Tidsskr., (2) 2 (4), pp. 334–345. *Westring, N. (1851). Förteckning öfver de till närvarande tid Kände, i Sverige förekommande Spindlarter, utgörande ett antal af 253, deraf 132 äro nya för svenska Faunan. ''Göteborgs Kungliga Vetenskaps och Vitterhets Samhälles Handlingar'' 2: 25-62 *Westring, N. (1861). Araneae svecieae. ''Göteborgs Kungliga Vetenskaps och Vitterhets Samhälles Handlingar'' 7: 1-615 *Westring, Niklaus (1862), Araneae Suecicae descriptae. Bonnier, *Westring, N. (1874). Bemerkungen über die Arachnologischen Abhandlungen von Dr T. Thorell unter dem Titel: 1°, On European Spiders, pts 1 et 2, Upsala, 1869-70. 2°, Remarks on Synonyms of European Spiders, Upsala, 1872-73. ''Göteborgs Kungliga Vetenskaps och Vitterhets Samhälles Handlingar'' 14: 1-68

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Westring, Niklas 1797 births 1882 deaths Swedish entomologists Swedish arachnologists 19th-century Swedish zoologists Members of the Royal Society of Sciences and Letters in Gothenburg Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences