Gottfried S. Fraenkel

Gottfried Samuel Fraenkel (April 29, 1901 – October 27, 1984) was a German-born American insect physiologist and a professor of entomology at the University of Illinois.

He was interested in aquatic biology and maintained specimens in a tank but when they all died he had to visit the Marine Zoological Stations in Naples.

He examined jellyfish that had blown into Naples during a storm and hypothesized that medusa statocysts acted as gravity sensors.

With a Rockefeller grant he also spent time at the Marine Zoological Stations in Naples, Roscoff and Plymouth.

He also began to study insect flight, examining the function of halteres in flies, which would later involve a collaboration with J.W.S.

[2][3] He also became interested in cutaneous respiration in fly larvae and tried to prevent air intake by ligation of anterior end.

This however caused developmental faults during metamorphosis and he was able to determine that the anterior end produced a hormone involved in initiating pupation.

He however fell out with Bodenheimer in an authorship related dispute and returned to Germany working very briefly as a privatdozent in Frankfurt.

With the rise of Hitler, he was dismissed and he emigrated in 1933 to England where he found work at the University of London with help from Julian Huxley and others.