Iguana 10.4 b&w text


150 IGUANA Volume 10, Number 4

Franz Werner was born and raised in Vienna. At
the age of six, his father presented him with a little
glass terrarium in which a Green Treefrog (Hyla
arborea) was supposed to forecast the weather by
selecting perches on a miniature step ladder pro-
vided for that purpose. A common European Sand
Lizard (Lacerta agilis) soon joined the treefrog — and
a lifelong interest in herpetology was established.

Werner studied zoology at the University of
Vienna, receiving his doctorate in 1890. He studied
briefly in Leipzig before moving back to Vienna in
1895 to accept an appointment at the Imperial
Zoological Institute at the university. He
rose to full professor in 1919, retired in
1933, and died in 1939.

Despite an inability to work with the
herpetological collection at  the Natur-
historiches Museum in Vienna, due to
the personal animosity of the director,
Franz Steindachner, who may have per-
ceived Werner as a competitor, Werner
used material from other European

museums and those in his personal collection to
publish over 550 titles, most in herpetology. He
described 24 genera and over 400 species and sub-
species of amphibians and reptiles. Although he
occasionally erred in describing as new well-known
species based on specimens with poor or erroneous
locality data, most of his work was quite competent.

Werner’s major works included faunal surveys
of Austria-Hungary (1897), the Bismarck Archi-
pelago east of New Guinea (1900), and Greece
(1938). Taxonomic monographs included one on
chameleons (1902), a three-part series on colubrid

snakes (1923, 1924,
1929), several issues
in Das Tierreich series,
and the two herpeto-
logical volumes in the
fourth edition of
Alfred Brehm’s “Tier-
leben” series (1912–
1913), from which
the current and recent
excerpts were taken.
He also wrote the sec-
tion on amphibians
for the Handbuch der
Zoologie (1930) and,
with Rodolpho Kraus,
the standard work on
venoms and veno-
mous snakes (1931).

Unlike many scien-
tists, Werner was not
averse to popular or
semi-popular writing.

His efforts along those lines, particularly a little vol-
ume entitled “Amphibien und Reptilien” (1910), did
much to develop an interest in herpetology among
German-speaking people, to encourage amateurs,
and to stimulate and inspire young zoologists.

Sources:
Adler, K. 1989. Herpetologists of the past, pp. 5–141. In: 

K. Adler (ed.), Contributions to the History of Herpetology.
Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles,
Contributions to Herpetology, Number 5. Ithaca, New York.

Mosauer, W. 1940. Franz Werner (1867–1939). Herpetologica
1:178–183.

B I O G R A P H I C A L  S K E T C H :  
Franz Werner (1867–1939)

Franz Werner with a Boa
constrictor (photograph
courtesy of Kraig Adler).

Franz Werner at Djebel Zalagh, near Fes, Morocco in
1928 (photograph courtesty of Kraig Adler).