Karl Ritter von Frisch (November 20 1886 – June 12 1982) was an
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
n
ethologistEthology is the scientific study of animal behavior, and a sub-topic of zoology....
who received the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineThe Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded once a year by the Swedish Karolinska Institute. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Physiology or Medicine...
in 1973, along with
Nikolaas TinbergenNikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen was a Dutch ethologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns in animals.In the 1960s he...
and
Konrad LorenzKonrad Zacharias Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist, animal psychologist, ornithologist, and Nobel Prize winner. He is often regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology, developing an approach that began with an earlier generation, including his teacher Oskar Heinroth...
.
He studied
zoologyZoology, also spelled zoölogy, is the branch of biology that focuses on the structure, function, behavior, and evolution of animals. The zoologist's pronunciation of "zoology" is , though a common spelling pronunciation is .-Systems of classification:...
with Richard von Hertwig whom he later succeeded as a professor of
zoologyZoology, also spelled zoölogy, is the branch of biology that focuses on the structure, function, behavior, and evolution of animals. The zoologist's pronunciation of "zoology" is , though a common spelling pronunciation is .-Systems of classification:...
at Munich, Germany. He studied the senses of
beeBees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...
s, identified their mechanisms of communication and showed their sensitivity to
ultravioletUltraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than x-rays, in the range 10 nm to 400 nm, and energies from 3 eV to 124 eV...
and polarized light.
Karl Ritter von Frisch (November 20 1886 – June 12 1982) was an
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.3 million people in Central Europe. It borders both Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west...
n
ethologistEthology is the scientific study of animal behavior, and a sub-topic of zoology....
who received the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineThe Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded once a year by the Swedish Karolinska Institute. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Peace, and Physiology or Medicine...
in 1973, along with
Nikolaas TinbergenNikolaas "Niko" Tinbergen was a Dutch ethologist and ornithologist who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz for their discoveries concerning organization and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns in animals.In the 1960s he...
and
Konrad LorenzKonrad Zacharias Lorenz was an Austrian zoologist, animal psychologist, ornithologist, and Nobel Prize winner. He is often regarded as one of the founders of modern ethology, developing an approach that began with an earlier generation, including his teacher Oskar Heinroth...
.
He studied
zoologyZoology, also spelled zoölogy, is the branch of biology that focuses on the structure, function, behavior, and evolution of animals. The zoologist's pronunciation of "zoology" is , though a common spelling pronunciation is .-Systems of classification:...
with Richard von Hertwig whom he later succeeded as a professor of
zoologyZoology, also spelled zoölogy, is the branch of biology that focuses on the structure, function, behavior, and evolution of animals. The zoologist's pronunciation of "zoology" is , though a common spelling pronunciation is .-Systems of classification:...
at Munich, Germany. He studied the senses of
beeBees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...
s, identified their mechanisms of communication and showed their sensitivity to
ultravioletUltraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than x-rays, in the range 10 nm to 400 nm, and energies from 3 eV to 124 eV...
and polarized light. In the center of his work were the study of the sensory perceptions of the
honey beeHoney bees are a subset of bees, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of perennial, colonial nests out of wax. Honey bees are the only extant members of the tribe Apini, all in the genus Apis...
and was one of the first who translated the meaning of the
waggle danceWaggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular figure-eight dance of the honey bee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share with their hive mates information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water...
. The theory was disputed by other scientists and greeted with skepticism at the time. Only recently was it definitively proved to be an accurate theoretical analysis (see Nature magazine reference).
In 1962 he was awarded the
Balzan PrizeThe International Balzan Prize Foundation awards four annual monetary prizes to people or organisations who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, culture, as well as for endeavours for peace and the brotherhood of man....
for
BiologyBiology is the natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy...
"For having consecrated his entire life to experimenting on thousands of bees, thus discovering a true language of gestures for communication and opening new insights into the knowledge of insect behaviour" (motivation of the Balzan General Prize Committee).
In 1973 he was awarded
Nobel PrizeThe Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901...
in
physiologyPhysiology is the science of the functioning of living systems. It is a subcategory of biology...
and
medicineMedicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
for his achievements in comparative behavioral physiology and pioneering work in communication between insects.
Frisch's
honey beeHoney bees are a subset of bees, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of perennial, colonial nests out of wax. Honey bees are the only extant members of the tribe Apini, all in the genus Apis...
work included the study of the pheromones that are emitted by the
Queen beeThe term queen bee is typically used to refer to an adult, mated female that lives in a honey bee colony or hive; she is usually the mother of all the bees in the hive. The queens are developed from larvae selected by worker bees and specially fed in order to become sexually mature...
and her daughters, which maintain the
hive-In science:* Beehive, a colony of bees or the shelter built for or by the bees* Hives, non-medical popular language name for Urticaria, a common form of allergic reaction* Hives, the highest level of organization in the Windows Registry-In the arts:...
's very complex social order. Pheromones are chemical odors one organism emits to communicate with another organism, most likely for reproductive reasons. Outside the
hive-In science:* Beehive, a colony of bees or the shelter built for or by the bees* Hives, non-medical popular language name for Urticaria, a common form of allergic reaction* Hives, the highest level of organization in the Windows Registry-In the arts:...
, the pheromones cause the male bees, or drones, to become attracted to a queen and mate with it. Inside the hive, the drones are not affected by the odor.
External links
- Karl Von Frisch, The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees, (1967) Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press is a publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in academic publishing. It was established on January 13, 1913. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses . The current director...
- Dance and communication of honey bees
- The flight paths of honeybees recruited by the waggle dance, Nature
Nature is a prominent British scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869. Most scientific journals are now highly specialized, and Nature is among the few journals that still publish original research articles across a wide range of scientific...
435, May 2005, pp. 205–207.
- Karl von Frisch, Decoding the Language of the Bee, Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1973
- Biography and bibliography in the Virtual Laboratory
The online project Virtual Laboratory. Essays and Resources on the Experimentalization of Life, 1830-1930, located at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, is dedicated to research in the history of the experimentalization of life...
of the Max Planck Institute for the History of ScienceThe Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin was established in March 1994. Its research is primarily devoted to a theoretically oriented history of science, principally of the natural sciences, but with methodological perspectives drawn from the cognitive sciences and from...
- Autobiography