Carl Heinrich Wilhelm Theodor Löbbecke (March 4, 1821,

Hückeswagen Hückeswagen ) is a town in the north of Oberbergischer Kreis, Oberbergischen Kreis, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is part of the governmental district Cologne, governmental district of Cologne. Geography Hückeswagen is situated on the ...

— January 18, 1901,

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second- ...

) was a German pharmacist,

malacologist Malacology is the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with the study of the Mollusca (mollusks or molluscs), the second-largest phylum of animals in terms of described species after the arthropods. Mollusks include snails and slugs, clams, ...

and the founder of the collections of the

Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum The Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum unites Zoo, Natural History Museum and Aquarium in one institution under the administration of the city of Düsseldorf. It was opened in 1987 in the North Park under the name "Löbbecke-Museum + Aquazoo" (there have b ...

in Düsseldorf. Jochen Reiter (Ed.) ''Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum: Düsseldorfs exotische Perle'', Droste-Verlag, 192 pages, 2018, His collection is still preserved by the institution and rich in type material of several mollusc species, such as the

Chicoreus loebbeckei ''Chicoreus loebbeckei'' is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the murex snails or rock snails. MolluscaBase eds. (2022). MolluscaBase. Chicoreus loebbeckei (Kobelt, 1879). Accessed through: World Regi ...

but also contains many template individuals depicted in early malacological literature.

Life

Löbbecke left the school in Elberfeld in 1837 and spent the next six years training as a pharmacist. In 1843 he studied for a year at the

University of Berlin Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (german: Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a German public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin. It was established by Frederick William III on the initiative ...

, after which he was licensed to become a first-class pharmacist. Around 1846, Löbbecke took over the Einhorn pharmacy in

Duisburg Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in No ...

, at which time he also began to build up his collection. The physician, natural scientist and natural history collector Wilhelm Ludwig Döring was his uncle and possible influence on his own ambitions to collect sea shells. By traveling through Europe, the Near East and Africa, as well as by buying up other researchers' collections, he was able to steadily increase his collection, which is why he was soon after not only jokingly referred to as the "Mussel King", because around 1880 he had the largest conchyliacollection in Europe. After giving up his pharmacy in 1873, he set up a private museum at Schadowstraße 51 in Düsseldorf. During the following years he also worked on the second edition of the "Systematische Conchylia-Cabinet", a work on identification of snails and mussels. In 1883 he married Caroline Biesterfeld, with whom he retired from 1886 and gave up his scientific activities completely. Löbbecke died in 1901 at his home in Düsseldorf. Theodor Löbbecke is buried in the Nordfriedhof in Düsseldorf. Posthumously a street was named after him in his native town of Hückeswagen. Moreover, several mollusc species bear his name, such as the

and the

Angaria loebbeckei ''Angaria loebbeckei'' is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Angariidae. It was discovered and described in 2022 based on only four specimens, which are part of both private and museum collections. In honour of t ...

.Henniges, Hermann, und Hermann Voges. Chronik der Familie Löbbecke. Braunschweig: Westermann, 1911. Print.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Löbbecke, Carl Heinrich Wilhelm Theodor 1812 births 1901 deaths Humboldt University of Berlin alumni German pharmacists 19th-century German chemists German malacologists 19th-century German biologists People from Oberbergischer Kreis