Philipp Bertkau

Philipp Bertkau (11 January 1849 – 22 October 1894) was a German zoologist born in Cologne.

He studied natural sciences at the University of Bonn, where in 1872 he earned his doctorate. In 1873, he became an assistant at the botanical institute in Munich, and during the following spring was an assistant at the zoological institute at Bonn. In 1882 he was appointed professor at the Agricultural Academy of Poppelsdorf, and in 1890 became curator at the Institute of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy.

Bertkau is remembered for his work involving the anatomy and physiology of spiders, research on sense of smell in butterflies, and anatomical studies of hermaphroditic arthropods. At Bonn he was secretary of Bonner Gesellschaft für Naturgeschichte (Bonn Society of Natural History).

He is the taxonomic authority of the families Anyphaenidae, Hahniidae, Sparassidae and Zoropsidae, and of the genera Ancylometes, Chalcoscirtus, Comaroma and Diplocephalus.^[1][2][3]