Moritz Hörnes

Moritz Hörnes (14 July 1815 – 4 November 1868) was an Austrian palaeontologist. He worked in Vienna as the curator of the imperial natural history cabinet. He was born in Vienna and studied at the University of Vienna, where he earned a PhD. After that, he helped Paul Maria Partsch in the Vienna mineralogical museum.

Hörnes is famous for his work on ancient sea creatures called Mollusca from the Cenozoic period, especially around the Vienna Basin and Alpine areas. In 1864, he created the term Neogene for certain rock layers that include both the Miocene and Pliocene periods. These layers sometimes have subtropical animals that change slowly to Mediterranean types.

Hörnes died in Vienna in 1868. A mineral called hörnesite was named in his honor in 1860 by Wilhelm Haidinger. He also oversaw the careful copying of the famous Florentine Diamond. One of his sons, Rudolf Hoernes, became a geologist and palaeontologist and taught at the University of Graz.