Roland Trimen | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 25 July 1916 75) London | (aged
Education | King's College School |
Known for | South African Butterflies |
Spouse | Henrietta Bull |
Awards | Darwin Medal |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Entomology |
Institutions | South African Museum |
Roland Trimen FRS (29 October 1840 in London – 25 July 1916 in London) was a British-South African naturalist, best known for South African Butterflies (1887–89), a collaborative work with Colonel James Henry Bowker. He was among the first entomologists to investigate mimicry and polymorphism in butterflies and their restriction to females. He also collaborated with Charles Darwin to study the pollination of Disa orchids.
Trimen was born in London in 1840, the son of Richard and Mary Ann Esther Trimen and the older brother of the botanist Henry Trimen (1843-1896) who went to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). He went to study at Rottingdean and then at King's College School in Wimbledon.
Trimen was interested in entomology but a chronic laryngeal condition forced him to move to the Cape of Good Hope as a treatment. Reaching there he volunteered under Edgar Leopold Layard at the South African Museum to arrange the museum's collection of beetles. [1]
He joined the Cape Public Service as a clerk in 1860 and later became private secretary to Richard Southey. Still later he served as secretary to Sir Henry Barkly, who was himself a keen botanist. From 1866 to 1867 Trimen served as part-time curator of the South African Museum. In August 1872 he went to Griqualand West as acting private secretary to the governor, Henry Barkley. In January 1873 he was again appointed part-time curator of the South African Museum in Cape Town, succeeding Edgar Leopold Layard. He remained private secretary to the governor and hence could only devote one day a week to the museum. [1]
In July 1876 he was appointed full-time curator of the South African Museum in absentia as he had accompanied Premier John Charles Molteno to Britain and only returned in October of that year. He remained in that position until 1895 when failing health caused him to take six-month's leave, at the end of which he resigned his position at the South African Museum. [1]
Trimen studied Cape Lepidoptera in the years prior to his appointment as full-time curator of the South African Museum. He published several journal articles during this time, including: [1]
During the early part of 1867 he collected specimens from the Natal area but his interest was not primarily in collection of insects but in taxonomy. In 1862 he published the first part of Rhopalocera Africae Australis: A Catalogue of South African Butterflies, Comprising Descriptions of All the Known Species, With Notices of Their Larvae, Pupae, Localities, Habits, Seasons of Appearance, and Geographical Distribution followed in 1866 by the second part. This work was the first attempt to comprehensively describe the butterflies of South Africa. [1]
Over the next 30 years Trimen published several significant papers on Lepidoptera, including:
His most important work on Lepidoptera was a three volume series published in conjunction with James Henry Bowker in 1887-1889 entitled South African Butterflies: A Monograph of the Extra-Tropical Species which described 380 species. His publications made him the leading authority on South African butterflies of his time. [1]
Trimen received butterfly specimens from a network of friends including Bowker and his sister Mary Elizabeth Barber. [2] His Lepidoptera collection was purchased by James John Joicey.
Triman was a member of the Vine Diseases Commission of 1880 and attended the international congress on Phylloxera in Bordeaux in 1881 on behalf of the Cape Colony. He became the first chairman of the Phyloxerra Commission in 1886 that was appointed by the Cape government to study root rot in Cape vines. [1]
Trimen also described a new species of bird, the racket-tailed roller, based on skins provided to the South African Museum. [3] Trimen also studied pollination in orchids and these were of interest to Charles Darwin and led to a correspondence between them. [4]
In addition, he wrote papers about leopards, sun-birds, the teeth of a whale and rare fish. [1]
Trimen married Henrietta B. Bull in 1885. They had no children. [1]
Henry Walter Bates was an English naturalist and explorer who gave the first scientific account of mimicry in animals. He was most famous for his expedition to the rainforests of the Amazon with Alfred Russel Wallace, starting in 1848. Wallace returned in 1852, but lost his collection on the return voyage when his ship caught fire. When Bates arrived home in 1859 after a full eleven years, he had sent back over 14,712 species of which 8,000 were new to science. Bates wrote up his findings in his best-known work, The Naturalist on the River Amazons.
Edgar Leopold LayardMBOU, was a British diplomat and a naturalist mainly interested in ornithology and to a lesser extent the molluscs. He worked for a significant part of his life in Ceylon and later in South Africa, Fiji and New Caledonia. He studied the zoology of these places and established natural history museums in Sri Lanka and South Africa. Several species of animals are named after him.
Aloeides, commonly called coppers, is a genus of butterflies in the family Lycaenidae. Most can be found in South Africa, but a few species occur as far north as Kenya.
Orachrysops niobe, the Brenton blue, is a species of butterfly in the family Lycaenidae and is endemic to South Africa.
Colonel James Henry Bowker, was a Cape Colony naturalist, archaeologist and soldier. He was co-author with Roland Trimen of South African Butterflies.
Robert Herbert Carcasson was an English entomologist who specialised in butterflies, but also authored two field guides to tropical fishes. He joined the Coryndon Museum, Nairobi, as senior entomologist in 1956. He then became its director, under the museum's new name of the Natural History Museum from 1961 to 1968. During this time, he was awarded a PhD for his studies on African hawkmoths. From 1969 to 1971 he was Chief Curator of the Centennial Museum, Vancouver, Canada. In 1972 he travelled in Polynesia, Melanesia, Australia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Seychelles and East Africa for production of two field guides to coral reef fish of the Indo-Pacific region. From 1973 to 1979 he was Curator of Entomology at the Museum of British Columbia. He died of cancer. Somewhat of a polymath, he was fluent in a number of languages, and produced the illustrations to a number of his works, culminating in hundreds of colour and line drawings of fishes for his reef fish field guides.
George Talbot FES was an English entomologist who specialised in butterflies. He wrote about 150 scientific papers, the majority being primarily systematic, consisting of the description of new species or the revision of various genera. He was also responsible for the curation and preservation of the Joicey collection of Lepidoptera prior to its accession by the Natural History Museum.
Paida is a monotypic moth genus of the family Noctuidae erected by Karl Jordan in 1896. Its only species, Paida pulchra, was first described by Roland Trimen in 1863. It is found in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe.
Antanartia, commonly called (African) admirals, is a genus in the family Nymphalidae found in southern Africa. They live along forest edges and are strongly attracted to rotting fruit and plant juices. For other admirals see genus, Vanessa. Recently, three species traditionally considered to be members of Antanartia have been moved to Vanessa based on molecular evidence. Antanartia borbonica was not sampled by the study, but was purported to belong in Antanartia based on morphological similarity.
Neita durbani, or D'Urban's brown, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It is found in South Africa in scattered populations in grasslands in the Eastern Cape and grassy mountain slopes at medium altitude from the Camdeboo Mountains along the escarpment to Bedford and Stutterheim, south to Grahamstown, and north to the Dordrecht Kloof and Jamestown.
Acraea trimeni or Trimen's acraea is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae. It is found in only in the arid savannah in the northern Northern Cape and the western part of the Free State.
Chrysoritis felthami, the Feltham's opal, is a butterfly of the family Lycaenidae. It is found in South Africa. It was originally described by Roland Trimen under the name Zeritis felthami. This species was named in honour of Henry Louis Langley Feltham.
Papilio echerioides, the white-banded swallowtail, is a butterfly of the family Papilionidae. It is found in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Charaxes jahlusa, the pearl-spotted emperor or pearl spotted charaxes, is a butterfly of the family Nymphalidae found in southern Africa.
William Frederick Purcell was an English-born South African arachnologist and zoologist. He is regarded as being the founder of modern araneology in South Africa.
Mary Elizabeth Barber was a pioneering British-born amateur scientist of the nineteenth century. Without formal education, she made a name for herself in botany, ornithology and entomology. She was also an accomplished poet and painter, and illustrated her scientific contributions that were published by learned societies such as the Royal Entomological Society in London, the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew, and the Linnean Society of London.
John Dow Fisher Gilchrist (1866–1926) was a Scottish ichthyologist, who established ichthyology as a scientific discipline in South Africa. He was instrumental in the development of marine biology in South Africa and of a scientifically based local fishing industry.
Dr Anthonie Johannes Theodorus Janse, also known as Antonius Johannes Theodorus Janse and by other orthographic variations, was a pioneer of South African entomology who specialised in Lepidoptera. His multi-volumed work, The Moths of South Africa is recognized as a definitive text.
Alfred Brown aka Gogga Brown was an English-born South African palaeontologist, archaeologist and naturalist whose contributions to science were considerable. Brown discovered 21 new species of fossil reptiles and dinosaurs, a large number of which were described by Robert Broom and Harry Seeley. The defunct genus Browniella and some ten fossil species were named in his honour. Brown's fossils included 7 new species of Triassic fishes, some found by other collectors, three of which were named after him. Brown published a solitary article on his finds - "The Dicynodon", appearing in the Cape Monthly Magazine. Despite having had no formal training in palaeontology, archaeology or natural history, Brown possessed an enquiring and orderly mind.
Daniel Rossouw Kannemeyer was a South African medical practitioner, naturalist, archaeologist and palaeontologist, the son of Daniel Gerhardus Kannemeyer and Johanna Susanna Rossouw He is best remembered for his contributions to palaeontology and archaeology although his collections of zoological specimens are greatly valued by the museums which acquired them.