Jacob Hübner


Jacob Hübner was a German entomologist. He was the author of Sammlung Europäischer Schmetterlinge, a founding work of entomology.

Scientific career

Hübner was the author of Sammlung Europäischer Schmetterlinge, a founding work of entomology. He was one of the first specialists to work on the European Lepidoptera. He described many new species, for example Sesia bembeciformis and Euchloe tagis, many of them common. He also described many new genera and species.
He was a designer and engraver and from 1786 he worked for three years as a designer and engraver at a cotton factory in Ukraine. There he collected butterflies and moths including descriptions and illustrations of some in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Schmetterlinge along with other new species from the countryside around his home in Augsburg.
Hübner's masterwork "Tentamen" was intended as a discussion document. Inadvertently published, it led to subsequent confusion in classification. His publications were issued in sections, some after his death, often without associated publication dates. Arthur Francis Hemming, secretary of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, summarized all the citations of Hübner's proposed taxonomic names, thereby constraining the possible dates of publication leading to the acceptance of Hübner's works as valid taxonomic publications.

Works