Carl August Dohrn

From Freepedia

Carl August Dohrn (June 27, 1806–1892) was a German entomologist.

Born at Stettin he was elected president of the Stettin Entomological Society in 1843 retiring from the post in 1887. Interested in all orders of insects Dohrn specialised in Coleoptera. Dohrn's first published paper was in the Entomologische Zeitung for 1845 but he was an active entomologist long before this, since he had acted as Secretary to the Stettin Society from its foundation in 1839 and edited its journal. He held together the rather fractious German entomologists and the society flourished. In part this was due to his contacts Alexander Henry Haliday, with whom he wrote a paper on the Linnaean Diptera and the London entomologists.

A frequent visitor to London he was accompanied by the Lepidopterist , Philipp Christoph Zeller in 1852, by Carl Henrik Boheman in 1854 and by Hermann August Hagen in 1857. He spent many summers in Italy, in Lucca with Haliday and in Turin with Maximilian Spinola. Dohrn was elected a fellow of the Entomological Society of London in 1855 and an honorary member in 1855. A classicist he was fluent in many European languages. His Coleoptera collection was very extensive and just prior to his death, at 86, he had received upwards of 1,000 beetles from Sumatra.