Erich Wasmann was an Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n (born in South Tyrol

South Tyrol

South Tyrol , also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two autonomous provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of and a total population of more than 500,000 inhabitants...

) entomologist, specializing in ants and termites, and Jesuit priest. He described the phenomenon known as Wasmannian mimicry. Wasmann was a supporter of evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

, although he did not accept the productivity of natural selection

Natural selection

Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....

, the evolution of humans from other animals, or universal common descent of all life. Rather, he believed that common ancestry was restricted to what he called "natural species" which were generally larger groups than species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 (which he called "systematic species"), genera

Genera

Genera is a commercial operating system and development environment for Lisp machines developed by Symbolics. It is essentially a fork of an earlier operating system originating on the MIT AI Lab's Lisp machines which Symbolics had used in common with LMI and Texas Instruments...

, or even families

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

. His natural species he identified with the "paleontological species" of Melchior Neumayr

Melchior Neumayr

Melchior Neumayr , German palaeontologist, was born at Munich, the son of Max von Neumayr, a Bavarian Minister of State....

. Wasmann also was involved in a long-running dispute with Ernst Haeckel

Ernst Haeckel

The "European War" became known as "The Great War", and it was not until 1920, in the book "The First World War 1914-1918" by Charles à Court Repington, that the term "First World War" was used as the official name for the conflict.-Research:...

 over Monism

Monism

Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...

.

Partial bibliography

• Die hl. [heilige] Hildegard von Bingen als Naturforscherin [St. Hildegard of Bingen as Natural Scientist], Kempten: J. Kösel, 1914.

• Die moderne Biologie und die Entwicklungstheorie, 2nd edition, Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1904
• Modern biology and the theory of evolution, Translated from the 3d German of the preceding, ed. by A. M. Buchanan. London, K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., ltd., 1910.

• Vergleichende Studien über das Seelenleben der Ameisen und der höhern Thiere, Freiburg im Breisgau : Herder, 1898.
• Comparative studies in the psychology of ants and of higher animals. Authorized English version of the 2d German ed. of the preceding. St. Louis, Mo. Freiburg (Baden), B. Herder. 1905.

• Instinct und Intelligenz im Thierreich : ein kritischer Beitrag zur modernen Thierpsychologie. Freiburg im Breisgau : Herder, 1897.
• Instinct and intelligence in the animal kingdom. A critical contribution to modern animal psychology, by Eric Wasmann, S.J. Authorized translation of the 2d and enl. ed. of the preceding. St. Louis, Mo., B. Herder, 1903.

• Der christliche Monismus.
• Christian monism; meditations on Christian truths in the language of modern thought. / Authorized translation of the preceding with an introduction by Rev. Spencer Jones. St. Louis, Mo.: B. Herder, 1923.

• The Berlin discussion of the problem of evolution; Full Report of the Lectures Given in February, 1907, and of the Evening Discussion. London, K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & co., ltd., 1909.

Collection

His collection of Formicidae, Isoptera, myrmecophile and termitophile Coleoptera( especially Staphylinidae) is in the Maastricht Natural History Museum

Maastricht Natural History Museum

The Maastricht Natural History Museum is a natural history museum in the Dutch city of Maastricht. The museum is located in a former monastery complex called Grauwzusters in the historic district Jekerkwartier.The collection is dedicated to the geology, paleontology, flora and fauna of South...

External links

• BDH Digitised Modern biology and the theory of evolution
• Taxonomists Global Ant Project