Nicolaus Michael Oppel
Nicolaus Michael Oppel was a German naturalist.
He was a student of, and worked as an assistant to, André Marie Constant Duméril at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris, France, cataloging and classifying species of reptiles. In 1811 he published a book entitled Die Ordnungen, Familien und Gattungen der Reptilien als Prodrom einer Naturgeschichte derselben, or "The Orders, Families, and Types of Reptiles..." in which he established the order, Squamata, and the families Cheloniidae, Colubridae, and the subfamily Crotalinae, as well as several genera which are still in use by taxonomists today.
With Friedrich Tiedemann and Joseph Liboschitz, he was co-author of Naturgeschichte der Amphibien.
