Jan Versluys

Jan Versluys (1 September 1873 in Groningen – 22 January 1939 in Vienna) was a Dutch zoologist.

He studied biology at the University of Amsterdam, and afterwards participated on a scientific voyage to the Caribbean aboard the vessel Chazalie. In 1898 he obtained his doctorate from the University of Giessen, then in 1899/1900 served as an assistant to Max Carl Wilhelm Weber on the Siboga Expedition to the Netherlands East Indies. As a result of the mission, he published a monograph on Gorgonians, titled "Die Gorgoniden der Siboga-Expedition". Later on in his career, he worked as a professor of zoology at the universities of Ghent (from 1916) and Vienna (from 1925).^[1]

Siboga Expedition group in the laboratory (Versluys at far right).

Taxa with the epithet of versluysi commemorate his name, an example being the amphipod subspecies Niphargus longicaudatus versluysi.^[2]

Selected works

• Die mittlere und äussere Ohrspähre der Lacertilia und Rhynchocephalia (dissertation), 1898 – The middle and outer ear-sphere of Lacertilia and Rhynchocephalia.
• Die Gorgoniden der Siboga-Expedition — English publication by Charles Cleveland Nutting as "The Gorgonacea of the Siboga expedition" (1902–11).
• Entwicklung der Columella auris bei den Lacertiliern, 1904 – Development of the columella auris in Lacertilia.
• Ueber Kaumuskeln bei Lacertilia, 1904 – On the masseter of Lacertilia.
• Die Salamander und die ursprünglichsten vierbeinigen Landwirbeltiere, 1909 – The salamander and the most primitive four-legged land vertebrates.
• Der Schädel des Skelettes von Trachodon annectens im Senckenberg-Museum, 1921 – The skull of the skeleton of Trachodon annectens at the Senckenberg Museum.^[3]
• Die Verwandtschaft der Merostomata mit den Arachnida und den anderen Abteilungen der Arthropoda (with Reinhard Demoll), 1921 – The relationship of Merostomata with arachnids and the other divisions of Arthropoda.
• Die Abstammung und Differenzierung der Gigantostraken, 1923 – The origin and differentiation of gigantostraca.^[4]

References