Otto Maas

Otto Philipp Maas (born 30 July 1867 Mannheim; † 17 March 1916 Munich) was a German zoologist and university professor of evolutionary history.

Life Maas studied zoology and medicine at the universities of Munich, Strasbourg, and Berlin, and received his doctorate in 1890 with a thesis on the development of the freshwater sponge. In 1894, he became a professor of zoology and evolutionary history at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. In 1902, he was promoted to associate professor in Munich, and in 1908, he was given a paid personal teaching position in comparative and experimental evolutionary history, as well as a teaching position in general zoology at the Royal Bavarian Academy of Agriculture and Brewing in Weihenstephan. In addition to the general and experimental history of animal development, Maas was mainly concerned with the research into cnidarians and in this area was the first to describe the umbrella jellyfish Nausithoe albatrossi (Maas, 1897) and the hydrozoa Euphysora bigelowi - now Corymorpha bigelowi (Maas, 1905), which he named in honor of the US zoologist Henry Bryant Bigelow.

On 8 March 1906, Maas was admitted as a member of the Imperial Leopoldine-Carolinian German Academy of Natural Scientists under the registration number 3208 in the Zoology and Anatomy section.

Selected publications Über die Entwicklung des Süfswasserschwammes. In: Journal of Scientific Zoology, 50, 1890, pp. 527–554, Plates XXII–XXIII

Ueber Medusen aus dem Solenhofer Slate Schiefer und der unteren Kreide der Karpathan. In: Palaeontographica. Contributions to the Natural History of Prehistory, 48, Sixth Issue, April 1902, Stuttgart 1901–1902, pp. 297–322, Plates XXII–XXIII

Lebensbedingungen und verbreitung der tiere (Living conditions and distribution of animals). Teubner, Leipzig 1907 ( digital copy )

Publications about Maas Cristina Herbst (ed.): Hedwig Pringsheim. Diaries. Volume 2, 1892–1897. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2013, pp. 706–707 Wilhelm Roux : Obituary. Professor Otto Maas. In: Archives for Developmental Mechanics of Organisms, 42, 1916, pp. 508–512