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The Department of Entomology is a research department and collection unit of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), located in Washington, D.C. The department houses the U.S. National Insect Collection, one of the largest entomological collections in the world, with over 35 million specimens housed in 132,354 drawers, 33,000 jars or vials, and 23,000 slides in more than 5,200 cabinets. The department also includes research scientists and technical staff from the Smithsonian Institution, the United States Department of Agriculture Systematic Entomology Lab (SEL) [1] and United States Department of Defense Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit (WRBU). [2]
Prior to 1862, the U.S. government's entomological work for agriculture was handled by the United States Patent Office. With the establishment of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 1862, the responsibility was transferred to the newly appointed USDA Chief Entomologist, Townend Glover. When he retired in 1877, he was succeeded by Charles Valentine Riley, who resigned in 1879 after a personal disagreement and was replaced with John Henry Comstock. Riley was reinstated as USDA Chief Entomologist in 1881, and was then also appointed Honorary Curator of the newly created Division of Insects at the United States National Museum (USNM). Although the USNM had been established in 1842. 4 years before the founding of the Smithsonian Institution, insufficient funding at the time led to the Smithsonian's insect collection being distributed to collaborating scientists, with the understanding that the material could be reclaimed.
In the 1870s, the USDA became the repository for the Smithsonian insect collection, which was added to the USDA collection. Upon Riley's appointment as Honorary Curator, the USDA insect collection was officially transferred to the USNM. The first salaried Smithsonian entomologist was the lepidopterist John B. Smith, who served as assistant curator from 1885 to April 1889. With the donation of Riley's personal collection (by Riley's account, 115,000 pinned specimens, 2,850 vials of alcohol material, and 3,000 slides of minute insects, for an estimated total of 150,000 specimens and 20,000 species) in 1886, the USNM insect collection achieved status as a major entomological depository. Riley was succeeded as USDA Chief Entomologist and Honorary Curator by Leland Ossian Howard, who served until 1927. In 1925, taxonomic work was established as a separate Bureau of Entomology within USDA, and underwent a series of names and reorganizations before becoming the Systematic Entomology Laboratory [3] in 1967. [4] The Department of Defense joined in 1961 because of the impact of mosquito-borne disease on national defense and public health.
The U.S. National Insect Collection is the second largest insect collection in the world, with approximately 35 million specimens representing over 300,000 species. The collection includes over 100,000 holotypes and many additional paratypes and secondary types. The size and quality of the Nearctic and Neotropical collections are unparalleled, but there are specimens from all over the world, with especially strong representation from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea. The specimens represent approximately 60% of the known insect families, with especially strong collections of butterflies and moths, flies, mosquitoes, beetles, and wasps. The majority of the collection is pinned or point-mounted and stored dry in drawers, but there are also many specimens housed in alcohol, on slides, and in envelopes.
The entomological collections are primarily housed at the National Museum of Natural History in downtown Washington, D.C. (70%), the NMNH Museum Support Center (MSC) in Suitland, Maryland (20%), and the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) in Beltsville, Maryland (10%). [5] The collections are loaned to qualified scientists and students around the world, and the department hosts visiting scientists who come to study the collections on-site. The department also houses the Entomology Illustration Archives, approximately 6000 illustrations originally created to support the department's research and publications but now housed and conserved separately as historically significant art objects. [6] Recently, the Department of Entomology has also established a non-illustration archive for physical objects, field and laboratory research notebooks and materials, and for correspondence of entomology researchers and staff based at the NMNH from all three agencies, as well as similar items accompanying donated collections.
As of 2013, the combined Department of Entomology (including SI, [7] USDA, [8] and DOD [9] ) employs about 80 permanent full-time staff and a variable number of research associates, postdoctoral and predoctoral fellows, students, and volunteers. The Smithsonian entomology staff includes 32 staff members, located at both the NMNH and the MSC in Suitland, MD. [10] The USDA SEL entomology staff includes 36 staff, located at both the NMNH and the BARC in Beltsville, MD, [11] and the WRBU entomology staff includes 6 staff members, located at the MSC in Suitland, MD. [12]
The department supports and collaborates in the "Butterflies + Plants: Partners in Evolution" exhibit, indoor butterfly pavilion and outdoor butterfly habitat garden, [13] the O. Orkin Insect Zoo, [14] and the new Q?rius learning center, [15] all located in or around the National Museum of Natural History. The Entomological Society of Washington sponsors an outreach program, The Young Entomologist Group, that provides monthly indoor and outdoor programs in natural history to young children. In addition, staff participate in "The Scientist is In" activities in the exhibits areas, engage small- and medium-sized audiences at local and regional events, provide interviews for various media outlets, and guide tours to visitors interested in going "Behind-the-scenes".
Dru Drury was a British collector of natural history specimens and an entomologist. He had specimens collected from across the world through a network of ship's officers and collectors including Henry Smeathman. His collections were utilized by many entomologists of his time to describe and name new species and is best known for his book Illustrations of natural history which includes the names and descriptions of many insects, published in parts from 1770 to 1782 with copperplate engravings by Moses Harris.
James Francis Stephens was an English entomologist and naturalist. He is known for his 12 volume Illustrations of British Entomology (1846) and the Manual of British Beetles (1839).
Benjamin Dann Walsh was an English-born American entomologist who served as the first official state entomologist in Illinois. He was a leading influence during a time of significant transition in American entomology. Walsh championed the application of scientific methods to control agricultural pests. He was a proponent of biological control as an effective means to manage insects. He was also one of the first American scientists to support Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and was instrumental in securing its broad acceptance in the entomological community.
Entomology, the scientific study of insects and closely related terrestrial arthropods, has been impelled by the necessity of societies to protect themselves from insect-borne diseases, crop losses to pest insects, and insect-related discomfort, as well as by people's natural curiosity. This timeline article traces the history of entomology.
Charles Valentine Riley was a British-born American entomologist and artist. He was one of the first individuals to use biological pest control and authored over 2,400 publications. He convinced Congress to create the United States Entomological Commission and was among the founders of the American Association of Economic Entomologists.
Terry Lee Erwin was an American entomologist with the Smithsonian Institution.
John Burns is an entomologist, curator of Lepidoptera and professor at Department of Entomology, Smithsonian Institution.
Richard Eliot Blackwelder was an American biologist, professor and author specializing in entomology and taxonomy. After a distinguished professional career, he retired in 1977, and in 1978 he discovered the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, which were to be the focus of his energies for the remainder of his life. Over the next twenty years, Blackwelder amassed a large collection of Tolkien-related books and other materials, which he sorted and indexed. The Blackwelder Collection, donated to Marquette University in 1982, is believed to be the largest single body of secondary sources on Tolkien ever to be developed.
James Halliday McDunnough was a Canadian linguist, musician, and entomologist best known for his work with North American Lepidoptera, but who also made important contributions about North American Ephemeroptera.
William Schaus was an American entomologist who became known for his major contribution to the knowledge and description of new species of the Neotropical Lepidoptera.
William Andrew Archer (1894–1973) was an American economic botanist, ethnobotanist, taxonomist, plant explorer, and herbarium curator. He was born in Torreon, Mexico to American parents. Archer studied at New Mexico State College, earning his B.S. in biology, and completed a Ph.D. in botany and mycology at the University of Michigan in 1925. Most of his professional career was spent at United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), including his position as Curator of the United States National Arboretum Herbarium from 1938 to 1964. After his retirement from the USDA, Archer was appointed Research Associate in the Department of Botany, National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). His career was marked by extensive collecting trips to Central and South America and to Africa. He spoke English, Portuguese and Spanish.
John Merton Aldrich was an American entomologist. Aldrich was the Associate Curator of Insects at the United States National Museum. He is considered one of the most prolific entomologists in the study of flies.
The concept of a system for filing and for the cross-referencing of specimen, collection, and identification information, was first advanced by A. D. Hopkins in 1894. The System was formally initiated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1902 by Hopkins himself, who was subsequently named Chief of Forest Insect Investigations. It was still in use in 1987 by more than twenty Forest Service units of Forest Insect and Disease Research and Forest Pest Management, and by the Agricultural Research Service Systematic Entomology Laboratory (ARS-SEL). A salient feature or the System was the controlled assignment of “Hopkins numbers” to avoid redundancy within or between field units. These unique numbers allow for the keying of records, an essential pre-requisite for the creation of a proper relational database.
The Hayk Mirzayans Insect Museum (HMIM) is the largest insect collection in Iran with over 4 million insect specimens, including 20–25,000 local species, hundreds of primary types and paratypes, and a representative collection of exotic insects, especially tropical butterflies.
Jonathan A. Coddington is an American museum scientist and biologist. From 2009 to 2014 he was the Associate Director for Science at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), located in Washington, D.C., United States. As of 2015, he is the Director of the Global Genome Initiative and Senior Scientist and Curator of Arachnids and Myriapods at the NMNH.
Louise M. Russell (1905-2009) was a US Department of Agriculture entomologist renowned for her expertise in insect identification and research on using parasites for biocontrol.
The Walter Reed Biosystematics Unit ("WRBU") is a US Army organization that conducts laboratory and field research on the systematics of medically important arthropods in support of epidemiological investigations and disease prevention and control strategies of importance to the military. Research is carried out worldwide, within geographic or faunistic restrictions of the material available and military requirements. Research efforts focus on the development of accurate and reliable means of identifying vectors of arbopathogens of humans.
Sophie Lutterlough (1910–2009) was an American entomologist. Lutterlough began working at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) as an elevator operator in the 1940s at a time when discriminatory hiring practices prevented African-Americans from working in a curatorial or scientific capacity at the Museum. In the late 1950s, after having gained extensive knowledge of the museum's exhibitions, she asked for and achieved a role in entomological work, eventually restoring hundreds of thousands of insects, classifying thousands. She co-identified 40 type specimens, specimens that stand as the representative example of the species. In 1979, a mite was named in her honor.
Reece Ivan Sailer was an American entomologist who specialized in classical biological control and the systematics of the bugs in the family Pentatomidae.
Maria Alma Solis is a entomologist at the Systematic Entomology Laboratory (SEL) of the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.