Ignaz Schiffermüller

The baptism record notes the name as Jeremias Ignatio, he was the eighth of ten children of master brewer Leopold Schiffermiller and Maria née Margottin.

Another work titled Ankündung eines systematischen Werkes von den Schmetterlingen der Wienergegend (1775) was distributed privately to various people including Carl Linnaeus.

[1][3] Schiffermüller is most noteworthy for his work in developing a scientifically based colour nomenclature to aid the description of butterfly coloration.

Work by predecessors in this field had proved unsatisfactory: he mentions suggestions made by Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (1723–1778) in his Entomologia Carniolica (1763) and August Johann Rösel (1705–1759) in his Insecten-Belustigung (1746–61).

Matching this table, and using the same alphabetical notation, is a 3 x 12 matrix showing a set of colour samples for blue, with some discussion of the pigments used.

[9][10] While at the Theresianum, several teachers were involved in entomological study, this included, apart from Schiffermüller, Sigismund Hohenwart (1730–1820), Matthias Piller (1733–1788), Ludwig Mitterpacher (1734–1814) and Michael Denis (1729–1800).

[11][12] The Ignaz-Schiffermüller Medal of the Entomological Society of America is awarded for an important monographs with a taxonomic and zoogeographical focus.

The lycaenid butterfly subspecies Pseudophilotes vicrama schiffermuelleri (Hemming 1929)and the moth genus Schiffermuelleria named by Hübner in 1825 honour him.