Johann Carl Megerle von Mühlfeld

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Johann Carl Megerle von Mühlfeld lived from 1765 to 1840.

He worked at the Naturhistorisches Museum of Vienna. Together with Andreas Xaverius Stütz he took care of the minerals and part of the Mollusc Collection, with the subject which all co-workers had avoided until then, the inventory-taking of specimens from the geosphere. He organized the Natural History Collection and became a custodian in 1797. He went into retirement at the end of 1835.[1] In 1806 the museum purchased his collection of European insects, and Megerle became the first curator of insects. He organised the purchase of the Gundian collection of European butterflies. These old collections with Megerle's specimens were destroyed in October 1848 during a Hofburg fire.^[1]

Among the taxa he described are Melolontha pectoralis, a kind of cockchafer, the bivalve genera Angulus, Chione (genus) and Corbicula, all in 1811, and the snail species Helix perspectiva in 1816 (today known as Discus perspectivus.

The brachiopod genus Megerlia King, 1850 is probably named after Johann Carl, as well as the odostomiine snail species Odostomia megerlei Locard, 1886.

His manuscripts are held at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.[2]

[edit] Reference

1. ^ Naturhistorisches Museum Wien: History of the entomological collections

[edit] Further reading

• Megerle von Mühlfeld, J.C. (1816). Beschreibung einiger neuen Conchylien. Magazin der Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin 8(1):4.