Karl (or Carl) Wilhelm Verhoeff (25 November 1867 – 6 December 1945) was a German myriapodologist and entomologist, specialising in myriapods (millipedes, centipedes, and related species) as well as woodlice and to a lesser extent insects.
[1] Verhoeff undertook a number of collecting trips, including visits to the French Riviera, and Romania and Bulgaria down through Bosnia and into Greece.
The 1962 compilation of Gisela Mauermayer records 670 scientific works by Verhoeff, including major contributions to the series Klassen und Ordnungen des Tierreichs.
[4] Contemporary taxonomists did not appreciate his early, groundbreaking work on Dermaptera, mainly due to his obscure expression and scarcity of illustrations and explanations, but his achievements in this group – as well as in Diplopoda and Chilognatha – were later recognized.
[5] Verhoeff received a number of awards towards the end of his life, including the silver Leibniz Medal of the Prussian Academy of Science (1933), the Preis & Plakette of the August Forel foundation (1942) and a Doktor Diplom from the University of Bonn on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his thesis (1943).