Hanan Bytinski-Salz

Hanan Bytinski-Salz was born in 1903 in Karlsruhe

Hanan (Hans) Bytinski-Salz was born in 1903 in Karlsruhe, in the German Empire. As a student he was a Zionist and a member of the Blau-Weiss movement. In 1931 he married Paula Lipschutz.

He studied zoology at the universities of Berlin and Freiburg and earned his doctorate in 1929. He then did postdoctoral work in Rovinj, at Yale University and at the John Innes Institute in London.

In 1939 he immigrated to the Land of Israel with his wife. With no suitable university post, he worked at an agricultural research station in Rehovot and at the Kibbutzim Seminar. After 1948 he headed the entomology department of the Ministry of Agriculture and set up the plant quarantine service.

In 1954 he began teaching at the institute that later became Tel Aviv University, where he was the first professor in the zoology department. He published 88 papers and described 168 new species, including moths, bees and beetles. In 1962 he was a founder of the Entomological Society of Israel.

He retired in 1974. In 1983 he donated his collections of insects and fossils and his scientific writings to Tel Aviv University. He died in 1986.