[2][3] His father died when he was a youth, and he and his family suffered much economic hardship, but he was supported and encouraged by Camill Heller, professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at the University of Innsbruck.

His teachers noticed his talent at a young age, so they encouraged his father to send him to the Franciscan high school.

He studied with Ludwig Karl Schmarda and did research at the "k. k. zoological Hofcabinete", the forerunner of the Natural History Museum, Vienna.

Ausserer married in 1888, but died of lung disease in Graz in 1889 at the age of 46; he was buried in Trautmannsdorf (Eastern Styria).

[1][4] Ausserer made an important contribution to arachnology by proposing a new taxonomic classification of the spider family Theraphosidae.