Wilhelm Konstantin Frommhold Petersen (12 June 1854 in

Lihula Lihula is a town in Lääneranna Parish, Pärnu County, Estonia. Lihula castle The castle of Lihula (german: Leal) was first mentioned in 1211, but it appears the site was used as a fortress since the Iron Age. In 1220, a Swedish army starte ...

– 3 February 1933 in

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...

) was an

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

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 ...

lepidopterist Lepidopterology ()) is a branch of entomology concerning the scientific study of moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies. Someone who studies in this field is a lepidopterist or, archaically, an aurelian. Origins Post-Renaissance, t ...

Baltic-German Baltic Germans (german: Deutsch-Balten or , later ) were Germans, ethnic German inhabitants of the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, in what today are Estonia and Latvia. Since their coerced resettlement in 1939, Baltic Germans have markedly ...

descent. He was the first who paid attention to the importance of the characteristics of genitalia in insect taxonomy. He was an early representative of the recognition concept of species.Tammaru, Toomas 1993. Wilhelm Petersen as a biologist-theoretician. In: Kull, K.; Tiivel, T. (eds.), ''Lectures in Theoretical Biology: The Second Stage''. Tallinn: Estonian Academy of Sciences, 122–128.

Published works

* ''Die Lepidopteren-Fauna des arktischen Gebiets von Europa und die Eiszeit'', Mag. Diss., 1881 * ''Reisebriefe aus Transkaukasien und Armenien'', 1884 * ''Fauna baltica, Band I: Rhopalocera'', 1890 * ''Über indifferente Charaktere als Artmerkmale. Zur Frage der geschlechtlichen Zuchtwahl'' * ''Eesti päevaliblikad. Systematische Bearbeitung der Tagfalter Estlands'', 1927 * ''Lepidopteren-Fauna von Estland'', 2 Bände, 1924 * ''Die Blattminierer-Gattungen Lithocolletis und Nepticula'', 2 Bände, 1927-1929

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Petersen, Wilhelm 1854 births 1933 deaths People from Lääneranna Parish People from the Governorate of Estonia Baltic-German people Estonian zoologists Lepidopterists 19th-century Estonian people 20th-century Estonian scientists