Caspar (or Kaspar) Erasmus Duftschmid was an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

naturalist Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

and

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

who made significant contributions to

entomology Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

, especially

Coleoptera Beetles are insects that form the Taxonomic rank, order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 40 ...

. He was born in

Gmunden Gmunden () is a town in Upper Austria, in the district of Gmunden (district), Gmunden. It has 13,204 inhabitants (estimates 2016 ). Geography Gmunden covers an area of and has a median elevation of . It is situated next to the lake Traunsee on t ...

on 19 November 1767, and died in

Linz Linz (Pronunciation: , ; ) is the capital of Upper Austria and List of cities and towns in Austria, third-largest city in Austria. Located on the river Danube, the city is in the far north of Austria, south of the border with the Czech Repub ...

on 17 December 1821. His best-known work, introducing many new

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

and

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

is ''Fauna Austriaca. Oder Beschreibung der österreischischen Insekten für angehande Freunde der Entomologie'', which was published in three volumes (in 1805, 1812, and 1825) at Linz and

Leipzig Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Ge ...

. His collection of Coleoptera and Lepidoptera from Upper Austria is in Oberösterreiches Landesmuseum – Biologiezentrum (The natural history museum of Upper Austria) in Linz. The labels are lost, and the insects incorporated into the general collection.

References

*Duméril, C. A. M. C. 1823 iographienParis; Strasbourg, F. G. Levrault. *Kusdas, K. & Reichl, E. R. rsg.1973: Allgemeines. In Kusdas, R. & Reichl, E. R. rsg.1973: ''Die Schmetterlinge Oberösterreichs''. Teil 1: Allgemeines, Tagfalter. Linz : 1-266 : 1-37. *Mitter, H. 2003: Zur Geschichte der *Käferkunde in Oberösterreich. Denisia 8 131–137, 7 Abb. 1767 births 1821 deaths Austrian entomologists Coleopterists Austrian naturalists People from Gmunden 18th-century Austrian physicians Physicians from the Austrian Empire Naturalists from the Austrian Empire 18th-century naturalists from the Holy Roman Empire {{entomologist-stub