1. Adolf Naef was a Swiss zoologist and palaeontologist who worked on cephalopods and systematics.
17 Facts About Adolf Naef
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Adolf Naef graduated in 1908 and went on to pursue a PhD under the guidance of Arnold Lang, a former professor of Jena University and close friend of Ernst Haeckel as well as a long-time associate of Anton Dohrn.
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Adolf Naef visited Dohrn's Zoological Station in Naples, Italy in 1908.
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In 1910, Adolf Naef accepted a position of a permanent visiting scientist at the Zoological Station, where he began work on a cephalopod monograph that had been started by Giuseppe Jatta.
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Adolf Naef took a concurrent teaching position at the University of Zurich, working remotely from Naples.
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In 1927 Adolf Naef became Professor of Zoology at the University of Cairo, and in 1929 Director of the Zoological Department.
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Adolf Naef expected this position to be a temporary one until he could find a job at a European university.
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Adolf Naef planned a comprehensive Textbook of Vertebrate Zoology, but his work on the project was stifled by isolating governmental regulations during World War II.
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Adolf Naef returned to Zurich in 1949 and died on May 11; few obituaries were published.
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Adolf Naef was married three times: first, to Elisabeth Rosenbaum on March 30,1907.
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In 1909, Elisabeth began studying medicine at the University of Zurich; she and Adolf Naef divorced in 1910.
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Adolf Naef argued that direct morphological observations form the necessary basis for systematics.
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Adolf Naef described his approach as Systematische Morphologie, the details of which he sketched out as early as 1913:.
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Towards the end of his career, Adolf Naef published several detailed accounts of Systematische Morphologie, including a succinct summary in the widely read 2nd edition of the Handworterbuch der Naturwissenschaften.
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Adolf Naef aimed to construct the first complete phylogeny for any single group, a purpose that cephalopods served well.
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Adolf Naef found that cephalopod embryology and paleontology were quite amenable to study.
17.
Adolf Naef found evidence for fins on belemnites almost a hundred years before their existence was finally proven, and he was the first to propose that modern squids evolved directly from belemnites.