Maximilian Perty

Josef Anton Maximilian Perty (17 September 1804, Ornbau – 8 August 1884, Bern) was a German naturalist and entomologist. He was a professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of Bern. His first name is sometimes spelled as "Joseph".

He studied natural sciences and medicine in Landshut, earning his medical doctorate in 1826. Afterwards, he obtained his PhD at Erlangen with a thesis on a previously unknown species of beetle, and in 1831 became privat-docent of zoology and general natural history at the University of Munich. From 1833 to 1876, he was a professor at the University of Bern.

He conducted investigative studies of arthropods collected by Johann Baptist von Spix and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius from an expedition in Brazil. In 1862, the botanical genus Pertya was named in his honor by Carl Heinrich "Bipontinus" Schultz.