Wilhelm Dunker

Wilhelm Dunker, full name Wilhelm Bernhard Rudolph Hadrian Dunker (21 February 1809, Eschwege – 13 March 1885, Marburg) was a German geologist, paleontologist and zoologist (specifically a malacologist).

He had a very extensive private collection of snails and shells, which he constantly increased by exchange with other collectors (and probably also by purchases).

He maintained contacts with his contemporaries Rudolph Amandus Philippi, Ludwig Karl Georg Pfeiffer, Hugh Cuming and Johannes Albers.

After his death, Dunker's mollusc collection was purchased by the Prussian state and placed in the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin, under the curatorship of Eduard von Martens, where it remains to this day.

Wilhelm Dunker wrote a large number of scientific publications on the systematics of the Mollusca and described numerous new species.