Martin Baehr (10 March 1943 – 17 April 2019) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

entomologist 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 ...

who mostly worked on

ground beetles Ground beetles are a large, cosmopolitan family of beetles, the Carabidae, with more than 40,000 species worldwide, around 2,000 of which are found in North America and 2,700 in Europe. As of 2015, it is one of the 10 most species-rich animal fa ...

(Carabidae), but also

spiders Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species di ...

grasshoppers Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are amongst what are possibly the most ancient living groups of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grassh ...

and other taxa. He described and named more than 2,000 species, mostly from

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

and

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. He studied biology at the university of

Tübingen Tübingen (; ) is a traditional college town, university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer (Neckar), Ammer rivers. about one in ...

. His doctoral thesis was initially supervised by

Willi Hennig Emil Hans Willi Hennig (20 April 1913 – 5 November 1976) was a German biologist and zoologist who is considered the founder of phylogenetic systematics, otherwise known as cladistics. In 1945 as a prisoner of war, Hennig began work on his th ...

, who then died before his graduation. Baehr was curator at the

Zoologische Staatssammlung München The Bavarian State Collection of Zoology () or ZSM is a major German research institution for zoological systematics in Munich. It has over 20 million zoological specimens. It is one of the largest natural history collections in the world. The ...

, at first in charge of

Heteroptera The Heteroptera are a group of about 40,000 species of insects in the order Hemiptera. They are sometimes called "true bugs", though that name more commonly refers to the Hemiptera as a whole. "Typical bugs" might be used as a more unequivocal al ...

and

Orthoptera Orthoptera () is an order of insects that comprises the grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets, including closely related insects, such as the bush crickets or katydids and wētā. The order is subdivided into two suborders: Caelifera – gras ...

, later of

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 ...

. For many years he worked as the managing editor of the zoological journal

Spixiana ''Spixiana'' is a biannual peer review, peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil on behalf of the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology, covering research in zoology. ''Spixiana'' publishes original works in the field ...

. One of his most comprehensive taxonomic revisions treated the subfamily

Pseudomorphinae Pseudomorphinae is a subfamily of ground beetles in the family Carabidae. There are about 12 genera and at least 360 described species in Pseudomorphinae. Genera These 12 genera belong to the subfamily Pseudomorphinae: * ''Adelotopus'' Hope, 18 ...

. Baehr also wrote several non-academic books including ''Welcher Käfer ist das?'' (''What Beetle is This?''), published by

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...

-based publisher Kosmos.

References

German entomologists 1943 births 2019 deaths {{Germany-zoologist-stub