Arnold Lang (18 June 1855 – 30 November 1914) was a Swiss naturalist, a

comparative anatomist 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 student of German

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual Cell (biology), cell, a multicellular organism, or a Community (ecology), community of Biological inter ...

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 ...

Biography

In March 1876 he earned his PhD from the

University of Jena The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (, abbreviated FSU, shortened form ''Uni Jena''), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany. The university was established in 1558 and is cou ...

, and two months later became habilitated as a

privat-docent ''Privatdozent'' (for men) or ''Privatdozentin'' (for women), abbreviated PD, P.D. or Priv.-Doz., is an academic title conferred at some European universities, especially in German-speaking countries, to someone who holds certain formal qualifi ...

zoology Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...

at the

University of Bern The University of Bern (, , ) is a public university, public research university in the Switzerland, Swiss capital of Bern. It was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the canton of Bern. It is a comprehensive university offering a br ...

. From 1878 to 1885 he was stationed at the Zoological Station in Naples, where he conducted research on wildlife native to the

Gulf of Naples The Gulf of Naples (), also called the Bay of Naples, is a roughly 15-kilometer-wide (9.3 mi) gulf located along the south-western coast of Italy (Metropolitan City of Naples, Campania region). It opens to the west into the Mediterranean ...

. In 1889 he became a professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at the

University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

and the '' Eidgenössische Polytechnikum'' as well as director of two institutions' zoological collections. From 1898 to 1900 he served as rector at the University of Zurich.Arnold Lang (1855 up to 1914)
at ETH Bibliotek In the autumn of 1891, a European fellowship for the best graduate in class enabled American experimental biologist

Lilian Vaughan Morgan Lilian Vaughan Morgan (''née'' Sampson; July 7, 1870 – December 6, 1952) was an American experimental biologist who made seminal contributions to the genetics of the fruit fly ''Drosophila melanogaster'', although her work was obscured by ...

to go to Europe and study muscles in

chiton Chitons () are marine molluscs of varying size in the class Polyplacophora ( ), formerly known as Amphineura. About 940 extant and 430 fossil species are recognized. They are also sometimes known as sea cradles or coat-of-mail shells or suck ...

s at the

with Arnold Lang. Norwegian biologist

Kristine Bonnevie Kristine Elisabet Heuch Bonnevie (8 October 1872 – 30 August 1948) was a Norwegian biologist. She was the first woman to graduate with a science doctorate in Norway (and the second woman overall), Norway's first woman professor, a women's rights ...

studied under Arnold Lang in Zürich in the years 1898-99. Lang sponsored the PhD work of Marie Daiber, a German-born Swiss zoologist who became a full professor at University of Zurich. He also taught zoologist Emily Arnesen and philosopher Heinrich Schmidt.

Works

By way of a suggestion from Ernst Haeckel, he published a translation of Jean Baptiste Lamarck's ''Philosophie zoologique'' into German (1876). From his research at

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

, he published in 1884 a massive monograph on

Polycladida The Polycladida represents a highly diverse clade of free-living marine flatworms. They are known from the littoral to the sublittoral zone (extending to the deep hot vents), and many species are common from coral reefs. Only a few species are fo ...

(marine

flatworms Platyhelminthes (from the Greek πλατύ, ''platy'', meaning "flat" and ἕλμινς (root: ἑλμινθ-), ''helminth-'', meaning "worm") is a phylum of relatively simple bilaterian, unsegmented, soft-bodied invertebrates commonly called ...

), and from 1888 to 1894, he issued a textbook on the comparative anatomy of

invertebrates Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordate subphylum ...

that was subsequently translated into French and English. * ''Die Polycladen (Seeplanarien) des Golfes von Neapel und der angrenzenden Meeresabschnitte'', (1884). * ''Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie der wirbellosen Thiere'', 2 Tl., (1888–94). * ''Beitrag zu einer Trophocöltheorie'', (1903). * ''Die experimentelle Vererbungslehre in der Zoologie seit 1900'', (1914).

References

External links

HathiTrust Digital Library
List of published works. Swiss naturalists 19th-century Swiss zoologists Swiss anatomists Embryologists 1855 births 1914 deaths People from Zofingen District Academic staff of the University of Zurich Academic staff of ETH Zurich University of Jena alumni Members of the Royal Society of Sciences in Uppsala {{Switzerland-scientist-stub