Wilhelm (Willy) Georg Kükenthal (4 August 1861, Weißenfels – 20 August 1922, Berlin) was a German

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

. He was the older brother of

botanist Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who s ...

and theologian Georg Kükenthal (1864–1955). Kükenthal specialized in the Octocorallia and on marine mammals. He edited, along with Thilo Krumbach, a landmark series of eight volumes in the ''Handbuch der Zoologie'' series which extensively reviewed and compiled the state of zoological knowledge of the time.

Life

Kükenthal was born to August Kükenthal (1826-1910) and Minna Wimmer (died 1917) and went to school at Weißenfels and Halle before joining the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...

where he studied mineralogy and later zoology at

Jena Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...

, earning his doctorate at the latter institution in 1884 for studying lymphoid cells in annelids. He travelled around the North Sea with B. Weißenborn and joined the zoology department Jena under

Ernst Haeckel Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; ; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, natural history, naturalist, eugenics, eugenicist, Philosophy, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biology, marine biologist and artist ...

in 1885. He was also influenced by Karl August Möbius. In 1886, with support from the Senckenberg Natural History Society, he participated in an expedition to

Borneo Borneo () is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world, with an area of , and population of 23,053,723 (2020 national censuses). Situated at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, it is one of the Greater Sunda ...

and the

Moluccas The Maluku Islands ( ; , ) or the Moluccas ( ; ) are an archipelago in the eastern part of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located in West Melanesi ...

. He specialized in the study of Octocorallia, a taxonomic subclass that includes

sea pen Sea pens are marine cnidarians belonging to the superfamily Pennatuloidea, which are colony-forming benthic filter feeders within the order Scleralcyonacea. There are 14 families within the order and 35 extant genera, and it is estimated a ...

sea fan Alcyonacea is the old scientific order name for the informal group known as "soft corals". It is now an unaccepted name for class Octocorallia. It became deprecated . The following text should be considered a historical, outdated way of treat ...

s and soft corals. In 1887 he obtained his

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

, becoming a professor of

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree or phylogeny is a graphical representation which shows the evolutionary history between a set of species or Taxon, taxa during a specific time.Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, M ...

at Jena two years later. From 1898 he served as professor of

comparative anatomy Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of different species. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny (the evolution of species). The science began in the classical era, continuing in t ...

and zoology at the University of Breslau (Wrocław) and as director of the zoological museum which in the present day is the Museum of Natural History, University of Wrocław ("Muzeum Przyrodnicze Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego" in Polish). In 1918 he was appointed professor of zoology at the

University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III on the initiative of Wilhelm von Humbol ...

as well as director of the zoological museum. In 1918-19 he was president of the German Zoological Society. Kukenthal journey

Kükenthal traveled to regions in the

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

in 1886, aboard the vessel ''

Germania Germania ( ; ), also more specifically called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Superio ...

''. He also joined the Valdivia expedition in 1889 and travelled again to the Moluccas and Borneo in 1893-94. He also conducted ethnographic studies. His large collection of zoological specimens is now housed at the Senckenberg Museum in

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

. (in German). Kükenthal was principally interested in comparative anatomy and conducted

embryological Embryology (from Greek ἔμβρυον, ''embryon'', "the unborn, embryo"; and -λογία, ''-logia'') is the branch of animal biology that studies the prenatal development of gametes (sex cells), fertilization, and development of embryos an ...

and comparative anatomical investigations of

whales Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully Aquatic animal, aquatic placental mammal, placental marine mammals. As an informal and Colloquialism, colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea ...

and other marine mammals. He was a supporter of Haeckel's biogenetic law. His other area of interest was the systematics of coelenterates and cnidarians. He published the ''Leitfaden für das Zoologische Praktikum'' (1898) and from 1913 he edited along with Thilo Krumbach the ''Handbuch der Zoologie''. Numerous copies of the ''Handbuch'' were burned by the Nazis as it was published by Dr W. Junk publishers (and Wilhelm Junk was a Jew). He has over twenty zoological species named after him, including ''

Calamorhabdium ''Calamorhabdium'' is a small genus of snakes, commonly known as iridescent snakes, in the family Colubridae. The genus contains two described species. Both species are burrowing snakes found in Asia. Species *'' Calamorhabdium acuticeps'' – ...

kuekenthali'' (Batjan iridescent snake), '' Emoia kuekenthali'' (Kuekenthal's emo skink),Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Kuekenthal", p. 147). '' Hemirhamphodon kuekenthali'' (Kuekenthal's

halfbeak Hemiramphidae is a family (biology), family of fishes that are commonly called halfbeaks, spipe fish or spipefish. They are a geographically widespread and numerically abundant family of epipelagic fish inhabiting warm waters around the world. ...

), '' Parantica kuekenthali'' (Kuekenthal's yellow tiger), and '' Lysmata kuekenthali'' (Kuekenthal's

cleaner shrimp Cleaner shrimp is a common name for a number of swimming Decapoda, decapod crustaceans that clean other organisms of parasites. Most are found in the family (biology), families Hippolytidae (including the Pacific cleaner shrimp, ''Lysmata amboi ...

). Kükenthaløya, a small island located between

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipel ...

and Barentsøya is named in his honor.

Selected publications (in German)

*''Vergleichend-anatomische und entwickelungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen an Walthieren''. (1889). *''Forschungsreise in den Molukken und in Borneo : im Auftrage der Senckenbergischen naturforschenden Gesellschaft'' [=Expedition to the Moluccas and

, on behalf of the Senckenberg Natural History Society]. (1896). *''Leitfaden für das Zoologische Praktikum'' [=Manual of practical zoology]. (1898). *''Australien, Ozeanien und Polarländer'' [=Australia, Oceania and Polar Lands]. (1902, 1910; with Wilhelm Sievers in Sievers’ ''Allgemeinen Länderkunde''). *''Pennatularia'' (1915). *''Gorgonaria '' (1919).

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kukenthal, Willy 1861 births 1922 deaths 19th-century German zoologists Academic staff of the Humboldt University of Berlin People from Weißenfels Academic staff of the University of Breslau Academic staff of the University of Jena 20th-century German zoologists Members of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala