His family moved from Dresden to Warsaw in the late 18th century, hence the German heritage.
[citation needed] Trained as a physician, he taught classes in natural history in Warsaw.
His wide-ranging travels included scientific trips to the Caucasus, the Urals, Lapland, the Pyrenees, Corsica, Hungary and Peru.
[1] He is the taxonomic author of the family Fanniidae[2] and the genera Spilogona and Paregle.
[4] He is commemorated with the species Mycetophila schnablii (a fungus gnat) and Cheilosia schnabli (a dipteran species) as well as Amorphochilus schnablii, commonly known as the smoky bat, a chiropteran native to western South America.