Karl August Möbius was born on February 7th, 1825 in Eilenburg. After passing his teaching exam in 1844 with distinction he taught at the general secondary school in Seesen, Harz. In 1849 he started studying science and philosophy at the Berlin University and afterwards became a teacher for Zoology, Botanic, Mineralogy, Physics and Chemistry at the Johanneum, Hamburg. In 1863 he opened the first public salt water aquarium.

1868 he became a professor for Zoology at the Christian-Albrechts Universität Kiel and became the head of the museum for Zoology. His major interests were marine animals and the ecology of the Kiel Bay. Along with Heinrich Adolph Meyer he published the two volume work “The fauna of the Kiel Bay”. For their research they used the yacht “Marie”, owned by Meyer. During this time Möbius established the concept of biocenosis, one of the fundamental concepts of biology today.

In 1879 Möbius became head of the Kiel University and used his position to improve the scientific school teaching in Germany. His most important change was to turn away from the old taxonomic approach to a teaching method orientated along biological phenomena. 1888 he left Kiel to take the leading position at the Zoological Collection of the ethnological museum in Berlin and to become a professor at the Berlin University. 

On the 26th of April 1908 Möbius died at the age of 83 in Berlin.