Ferdinand Deppe

Who was Ferdinand Deppe?

Ferdinand Deppe was a German naturalist, explorer and painter. He was born and died in Berlin.

Deppe travelled to Mexico in 1824. He collected natural history specimens for the Berlin Museum with Count von Sack and William Bullock. He also collected in California and Hawaii on his way home in 1830. Some of his American flies were described by Christian Rudolph Wilhelm Wiedemann in Aussereuropäische Zweiflügelige Insekten published in Hamm.

In the field of herpetology, he is commemorated with the specific epithets of Aspidoscelis deppei, Pituophis deppei and Tantilla deppei. His name is also associated with Deppe's squirrel and Oxalis deppei, the so-called "lucky four-leaf clover".

He was the younger brother of Wilhelm Deppe, an accountant with the zoological museum of Berlin.