Johann Adam Otto Bütschli (Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

, 3 May 1848 – Heidelberg

Heidelberg

-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...

, 2 February 1920) was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 zoologist and professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 at the University of Heidelberg. He specialized in invertebrate

Invertebrate

An invertebrate is an animal without a backbone. The group includes 97% of all animal species – all animals except those in the chordate subphylum Vertebrata .Invertebrates form a paraphyletic group...

s and insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

 development

Developmental biology

Developmental biology is the study of the process by which organisms grow and develop. Modern developmental biology studies the genetic control of cell growth, differentiation and "morphogenesis", which is the process that gives rise to tissues, organs and anatomy.- Related fields of study...

. Many of the groups of protist

Protist

Protists are a diverse group of eukaryotic microorganisms. Historically, protists were treated as the kingdom Protista, which includes mostly unicellular organisms that do not fit into the other kingdoms, but this group is contested in modern taxonomy...

s were first recognized by him.

Life

Bütschli studied mineralogy and chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe and became assistant of Karl Alfred von Zittel

Karl Alfred von Zittel

Karl Alfred Ritter von Zittel was a German palaeontologist.-Biography:He was born at Bahlingen in Baden, and educated at Heidelberg, Paris and Vienna. For a short period he served on the Geological Survey of Austria, and as assistant in the mineralogical museum at Vienna...

 After two semesters at the University of Heidelberg he received his Ph.D in 1868. He joined Rudolf Leuckart

Rudolf Leuckart

Karl Georg Friedrich Rudolf Leuckart was a German zoologist who was born in Helmstedt. He was a nephew to naturalist Friedrich Sigismund Leuckart ....

 at the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

 and worked for two years with Karl Möbius

Karl Möbius

Karl August Möbius was a German zoologist who was a pioneer in the field of ecology and a former director of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin.- Early life :...

 at the University of Kiel

University of Kiel

The University of Kiel is a university in the city of Kiel, Germany. It was founded in 1665 as the Academia Holsatorum Chiloniensis by Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp and has approximately 23,000 students today...

. But most of the time between 1868 and 1876 he worked for himself at the University of Frankfurt.
For his habilitation in 1876 he worked at the University of Karlsruhe.
He became professor at the University of Heidelberg as successor of Alexander Pagenstecher

Alexander Pagenstecher

Friedrich Alexander Hermann Pagenstecher was a German ophthalmologist who was born in Wallau. He studied medicine at several universities including Gießen, Heidelberg and Würzburg. In 1856 he founded an ophthalmology hospital in Wiesbaden, and was its director until his death in 1879...

in 1878. He held this position until his retirement