Nicolaus Michael Oppel (December 7, 1782 in
Schönficht – February 16, 1820 in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
) was a German
naturalist.
He was a student of, and worked as an assistant to,
André Marie Constant Duméril (1774-1860) at the
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
The French National Museum of Natural History, known in French as the ' (abbreviation MNHN), is the national natural history museum of France and a ' of higher education part of Sorbonne Universities. The main museum, with four galleries, is loc ...
in
Paris, France
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...
, cataloging and classifying species of
reptiles. In 1811 he published a book entitled ''Die Ordnungen, Familien und Gattungen der Reptilien als Prodrom einer Naturgeschichte derselben'', or "The Orders, Families, and Types of Reptiles..." in which he established the
order,
Squamata
Squamata (, Latin ''squamatus'', 'scaly, having scales') is the largest order of reptiles, comprising lizards, snakes, and amphisbaenians (worm lizards), which are collectively known as squamates or scaled reptiles. With over 10,900 species ...
, and the
families
Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Ideal ...
Cheloniidae
Cheloniidae is a family of typically large marine turtles that are characterised by their common traits such as, having a flat streamlined wide and rounded shell and almost paddle-like flippers for their forelimbs. They are the only sea turtles t ...
,
Colubridae, and the subfamily
Crotalinae, as well as several
genera which are still in use by
taxonomists today.
With
Friedrich Tiedemann (1781-1861) and
Joseph Liboschitz (1783-1824), he was co-author of ''Naturgeschichte der Amphibien'' (
Natural history of
amphibians).
WorldCat Identities
(publications)
References
*Translated from th
French Wikipedia
Integrated Taxonomic Database
1782 births
1820 deaths
19th-century German zoologists
German herpetologists
People from Tirschenreuth (district)
{{Germany-zoologist-stub