Johan Christian Fabricius

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Image:Fabricius Johann Christian 1745-1808.png

Johan Christian Fabricius (January 7, 1745 - March 3, 1808) was a Danish entomologist and economist.

Fabricius was born at Tønder in South Jutland. He studied at the gymnasium at Altona and entered the University of Copenhagen in 1762. Later the same year he travelled together with his friend and relative Johan Zoega to Uppsala, where he studied under Carl von Linné for two years.

Fabricius worked primarily with arthropods and was a specialist on insects, classifying many spiders including the black widow. He was professor of natural history, economy and finance at the University of Kiel from 1775. He was a regular visitor to London where he studied many collections.

His works included Genera Insectorum (1776), Species Insectorum (1781), Mantissa Insectorum (1787), and his main work, Entomologicae Systematica I-IV, (1792-1794) followed by Supplementum Entomologiae Systematicae (1798).