The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Müller, Johann Friedrich Theodor

MÜLLER, Johann Friedrich Theodor, yō hän frēd'rĭH tā'ō-dōr (better known as Fritz Müller, and also known as Müller-Desterro), German naturalist: b. near Erfurt, 31 March 1821; d. 1897. After studying at the universities of Greifswald and Berlin, he went to South America in 1848, and settled on the island of Santa Catharina, Brazil, living there the ordinary pioneer's life until appointed (1856) to teach natural history and mathematics in the Desterro gymnasium. From 1874 he was engaged for a time as collector for the museum at Rio de Janeiro. His published papers on crustaceans, insects, worms, jellyfishes, etc., were many, most of them appearing in the ‘Annals’ of the Rio de Janeiro Museum, Wiegmann's ‘Archiv für Naturgeschichte,’ and similar publications. In his ‘Facts for Darwin’ (1864), a book written under the stimulus of Darwin's ‘Origin of Species,’ he made valuable applications of Darwinianism in new fields, and won reputation among men of science for the originality and fertility of his observations and deductions. Among the more important pieces of work which he did were researches on mimicry (q.v.) and the first clear statement of the theory of recapitulation (q.v.).