Müller, Josef

Josef (Giuseppe) Müller was born at Zara, Dalmatia (now Croatia) on April 24, 1880. He obtained a degree in philosophy from Graz University in 1902, and moved to Trieste, Italy. There, Müller joined the Società Adriatica and established an entomological section of the society. He intended, with the cooperation of others, to complete an entomological survey of the area. However, World War I broke out, and Müller was drafted, and he worked on the biology of human lice, a vector of typhus. Müller returned to Trieste after the war, and became conservator and then director of the Trister Naturhistorisches Museum. The museum flourished under his direction, particularly the entomology department. Müller published many encyclopedic works, such as “Catalogo dei Coleotteri della Venezia Giulia” and monographic works on ants, beetles, reptiles, etc. Müller led several expeditions to Ethiopia and the Red Sea. He retired as the director in 1941, but in 1953 published a large work on phytophagous...