| Activity | specialised in Crustacea, especially decapods. He was chief conservator at the Zoologische Staatssammlung (State Zoology Collection) of the University of Munich, and wrote the sections on decapods and stomatopods in Heinrich Georg Bronn's seminal work "Klassen und Ordnungen des Tierreichs" ('Classes and Orders of the Animal Kingdom').
A number of taxa are named in his honour: Balssia (1922), Podocallichirus balssi (1935), Detocarcinus balssi (1956), Trizocheles balssi (1914), Rhynchocinetes balssi (1936), Ctenocheles balssi (1926), Galathea balssi (1964) |