biography
pronunciation:
[iyzner]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1929– )
|
| biography:
| Entomologist, born in Berlin, Germany. As a child in Germany, he showed an early interest in what he termed ‘biophilia’, the love of living creatures, and was always fascinated by insects and odours. When his Jewish father left Germany (1933), Eisner emigrated with his family to Barcelona, Spain, then to France and then Uruguay. He went to the USA in 1948, and was a research associate at Harvard (1955–7), where he worked with sociobiologist E O Wilson. He joined Cornell (1957), where he made major contributions to studies of insect physiology, adaptation, and behaviour, particularly web-making communication in spiders, and the spraying defences of the bombardier beetle. He referred to insects as ‘master chemists’ and was an authority on their pheromones and chemical ecology. In addition to being an accomplished photographer of insects and the author of five books and over 250 scientific articles, he was an advocate of human rights, an opponent of nuclear war, and an active environmentalist and conservationist. |
|
|
