Wilhelm Michaelsen

Wilhelm Michaelsen ( born October 9, 1860 in Hamburg, † February 18, 1937 ) was a German zoologist who created the system of subordination Lumbricina.

He comes from a family of craftsmen and learned after finishing high school mechanical engineer. He then attended but again the school up to matriculation examination and then studied natural sciences.

In 1887 he began at the Hamburg Zoological Museum, first as a full-time research assistant and later head curator. From 1905 he undertook three study trips to faunistic study of the Südspitzen the continents of America, Africa and Australia, where he studied mainly to the area of ​​distribution of earthworms. He supported the continental drift theory of Alfred Wegener. He described 1906/7 was the first to Badische giant earthworm.