author
Asa A. (Asa Arthur) Schaeffer
1883–1980
Best known for careful studies of amoebas, this American protozoologist wrote clearly about microscopic life and helped map out species that scientists were still trying to understand. His work joined close observation with a gift for explaining movement and behavior in living cells.
1 Audiobook
Ameboid movement
by Asa A. (Asa Arthur) Schaeffer
About the author
Born in Pennsylvania in 1883, Asa Arthur Schaeffer became an American zoologist and protozoologist whose research centered on amoebas. Reference sources and library records connect him especially with the taxonomy and behavior of these single-celled organisms, and he lived a long life that ended in Philadelphia in 1980.
His books show the kind of work he is remembered for. Ameboid Movement was published in 1920, and Taxonomy of the Amebas followed in 1926, including descriptions of many marine and freshwater species. Those titles suggest a scientist deeply interested both in how amoebas move and in how they can be carefully classified.
Schaeffer also appears in the history of the Marine Biological Laboratory, which preserves a photograph of him in its digital collections. For readers today, his writing offers a window into an earlier era of biology, when patient observation under the microscope was opening up whole new ways of understanding life at its smallest scale.