Item 0002 - Monographie der Gattiung Prioptera Hope (Col. Cassid.)

Dr. Frank (Franz) Spaeth was born on October 4, 1863, in Vienna, Austria.

He was an Austrian entomologist and author. For nearly half a century, he specialized almost exclusively on the cassids, building up his fine private collection by purchasing material from other collections/collectors and maintaining voucher specimens which he kept after identifying them for other museums and institutions. The collection was housed in Spaeth’s apartment in Vienna, Austria, in 80 large cabinet drawers. During World War II, it was condensed into 40 drawers and was kept safe in the basement of the Natural History Museum in Vienna. Spaeth’s collection survived the war, but the first copy of a new manuscript on the Cassidinae beetles was destroyed by bombing in Vienna. In 1898, Dr. Spaeth published the first of his many papers dealing with cassidine taxonomy. By 1943, the date of his last publication, one hundred and twenty papers, many large and consisting of several parts, had appeared. In 1950, Dr. Spaeth’s Cassidinae Collection (23,094 specimens of 2,211 species), manuscripts, cassid literature, card-index, notes, and unfinished works was acquired and moved to the Manchester Museum, England. His Chrysomedinae-Cassidinae collection is among the finest collections of tortoise-beetles. The new genus Spaethaspis was named in honour of Dr. Spaeth.

He died on July 29, 1946, in Vienna, Austria.