Fritz Haas

Who was Fritz Haas?

Fritz Haas was a Jewish German zoologist born in Frankfurt-am-Main. He specialized in the field of malacology.

He was trained in biology by herpetologist Oskar Boettger and malacologist Wilhelm Kobelt. From 1911 to 1936 he was a curator of invertebrate zoology at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt am Main. On June 30, 1936, he was removed from his position at the Senckenberg Museum by the Nazis. From 1938 to 1959 Haas was curator at the department of lower invertebrates at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

Haas' specialty involved the study of land and freshwater snails, as well as research of the family Unionidae. He performed extensive field investigations in Norway, Pyrenees, Spain, France, southern Africa and the Americas.

Among his better known written works was a 1969 monograph titled Superfamilia Unionacea. He is credited with combining over 4000 names from the family Unionidae into 837 recognized species.