Arnold Pagenstecher

Arnold Andreas Friedrich Pagenstecher was a German physician and entomologist, born at Dillenburg on 25 December 1837 and dead at Wiesbaden on 11 June 1913. He studied medicine at the universities of Würzburg, Berlin and Utrecht and then worked as an assistant to his cousin Alexander Pagenstecher at the latter ophthalmology clinic in Wiesbaden. In 1863 he settled in Wiesbaden as a general practitioner with a special interest in otological medicine, and he was made a Sanitätsrat, a medical officer, in 1876 and a Geheimer Sanitätsrat, a privy medical counsellor, in 1896. Alongside his practice he became known for extensive studies of butterflies and moths, above all those of Maritime Southeast Asia and the swallowtail family Papilionidae, and he wrote noted works on the family Callidulidae and the subfamily Libytheinae. His book Die geographische Verbreitung der Schmetterlinge, published at Jena in 1909, examined the causes behind the geographical distribution of Lepidoptera. From 1882 until his death he directed the Wiesbaden Natural History Museum, which holds his collection.