Josef Mik

Who was Josef Mik?

Josef Mik, also Joseph Mik was a Czech entomologist mainly interested in Diptera. He described many new species and made contributions to knowledge of the Diptera of Central Europe.Mik was the first dipterist to clarify the chaetotaxy of the legs. " On the legs I distinguish a front [chaeta]- and a hind-side ; an upper- and an under-side. When we imagine the leg stretched out horizontally and perpendicularly to the longitudinal axis of the body, the front-side is that which is turned towards the head, and the hind-sidethat turned towards the end of the body ; the upper- and under-side, in such a case, are self-understood."

Mik was born in Zábřeh, Moravia. From 1871 to 1889 he was teacher at the Academic Gymnasium in Vienna. In 1889 he was given the Knight's Cross of the Order of Franz Joseph; he died in Vienna.