Wilhelm Moritz Keferstein

Who was Wilhelm Moritz Keferstein?

Wilhelm Moritz Keferstein was a German naturalist. He described a number of reptiles and amphibians for the first time.

He originally studied hydraulic engineering in Hanover, later becoming a lecturer and professor of zoology at the University of Göttingen.

With zoologist Ernst Ehlers, he wrote Zoologische Beiträge gesammelt im Winter 1859/60 in Neapel und Messina... in 1861. With Karl Wilhelm von Kupffer he was co-author of a study on the electric organs of Gymnotus and Mormyrus that was published in Henle and Pfeufer's Zeitschrift für rationelle Medicin. He also made important contributions to Heinrich Georg Bronn's Die Klassen und Ordnungen des Thier-Reichs.

Keferstein's tree frog is named after him, as is a genus of polychaetes, Kefersteinia.