Wilmatte Porter Cockerell

Last updated
Wilmatte Porter Cockerell
Wilmatte Porter Cockerell (1871-1957) and Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell (1866-1948) (cropped).jpg
Cockerell with her husband Theodore in their garden, 1935
Born
Wilmatte Porter

1869
Leon, Iowa, United States
Died15 March 1957 (aged 87)
Los Angeles, California
Resting placeColumbia Cemetery, Boulder, Colorado
NationalityAmerican
Education Stanford University
Known forDiscovery and collection of species of fauna and flora
Spouse Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell
Awards1915 Medal, Panama–Pacific International Exposition
Scientific career
Fields Entomology

Wilmatte Porter Cockerell (July 28, 1870 - January 1, 1957) [1] was an American entomologist and high school biology teacher who discovered and collected a large number of insect specimens and other organisms. She participated in numerous research and collecting field trips including the Cockerell-Mackie-Ogilvie expedition. She wrote several scientific articles in her own right, co-authored more with her husband, Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell, and assisted him with his prolific scientific output. She discovered and cultivated red sunflowers, eventually selling the seeds to commercial seed companies. Her husband and her entomological colleagues named a number of taxa in her honor.

Contents

Biography

Cockerell was born Wilmatte Porter in Leon, Iowa, in 1869. [2] She attended Stanford University and graduated from there in 1898. [3]

From 1899 she was employed as a professor of biology at the New Mexico Normal University in Las Vegas, New Mexico. [4] There she met Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell, a self-taught entomologist from England specialising in Hymenoptera, who was also employed at that college. [5] [6] [7] [8] Theodore had established the New Mexico biological station at the Agricultural Experiment Station in Mesilla a few years earlier, but in 1899 he moved it to Las Vegas, where he used the facilities of the New Mexico Normal University (he was employed there himself the following year). Theodore used the biological station to teach summer classes in applied biology to mostly public school teachers. By 1900 Cockerell was the assistant director of the station with Theodore being the director. [4] Some of the results from work undertaken at the station were jointly published by Theodore and Cockerell in 1899. [5] [9] [10]

Cockerell married Theodore on June 19, 1900. [6] After her marriage she frequently went on collecting expeditions with Theodore. [11] As well as accompanying her husband on field trips, she collaborated with him on his scientific research and writing. [5] After her marriage Cockerell combined teaching with collecting, and wrote a number of papers on entomology, some as sole author. [12] [13] She was much better than her husband at catching insects, on some field trips out-collecting him nine to one. Both Cockerells were badly paid, and it is known Wilmatte sometimes supplemented the family income by selling specimens she obtained while on her field trips to professional full-time insect collectors, who in some cases altered the collection locality on the labels to make the insects appear more exotic and increase their value. [8]

In 1904 Cockerell and her husband moved to Boulder, Colorado, where Cockerell was employed as a biology teacher at the Colorado State Preparatory School. [7] She continued at that high school for much of her teaching career. [3] In February 1904 Science Magazine published a short article Cockerell had sent in about a local plant she mistakenly called Picradenia odorata utilis which a friend had suggested might be a source of rubber, and that her husband had begun to research. The plant had actually just been described in 1903 in the first issue of a new local Colorado scientific magazine as P. floribunda utilis, although in September 1904 her husband moved it to Hymenoxys floribunda utilis. It is now considered a synonym of H. richardsonii var. floribunda. [14] [15] [16]

Deep red sunflower Deep red sunflower.jpg
Deep red sunflower

In 1910 Cockerell discovered a red sunflower across the road from her home in a field. This sunflower was a mutant that she and Theodore transferred to their garden. Cockerell proceeded cultivate it further, developing the mutation to the point where it could be sold to commercial seed companies. [17] Seed companies such as Peter Henderson & Co, Sutton & Sons, and Burpee marketed the red sunflower seeds throughout the world. [7] [3] [18] The Cockerells were awarded a medal for their work on these sunflowers at the Panama–Pacific International Exposition at San Francisco in 1915. [3]

Field trips

In August 1902 Cockerell took a field trip to Truchas Peak, Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, where she collected bees and other insects. This trip resulted in her first scientific report published as sole author, A trip to the Truchas Peaks, New Mexico in the journal The American Naturalist . [19]

In 1906 the Cockerells visited the Florissant Fossil Beds with Sievert Allen Rohwer and W. M. Wheeler, and with them collected specimens and published various articles about the fossil insects found at this site. [6]

During the summers after 1911, the Cockerells undertook various field trips the world over collecting bees, insects, and studying flora and fauna. [7] During these field trips, as well as providing specimens for her husband's research, Cockerell's collecting also provided other entomologists with specimens to research. In 1912 Cockerell and her husband traveled to Guatemala. There she collected numerous insect specimens including many wasps, some of which were species previously unknown to science. These were studied by Rohwer who named two species after her. [20] Also in 1912, while traveling in Guatemala, Cockerell collected three specimens of cacti for National Herbarium at the Smithsonian. These were sent to the botanists Nathaniel Lord Britton and Joseph Nelson Rose. They reclassified their just described Hylocereus minutiflorus as a monotypic species in the genus Wilmattea in her honor, although this change has since been rescinded. [21]

In August 1918, Cockerell and her husband went on a field trip to Peaceful Valley, Colorado, where again she collected specimens of numerous species previously unknown to science. [22]

Cockerell and her husband traveled to the United Kingdom in 1921, and visited the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. [23]

In 1923 Cockerell and Theodore undertook a trip to Japan. They traveled on the steamer Aleut. While in Japan they had a narrow escape in the Great Kantō earthquake. The Denver Times reported that Cockerell and her husband were believed lost in the catastrophe. [24]

In the later half of 1931 into 1932 the Cockerells went to Africa on what they christened the "Cockerell-Mackie-Ogilvie Expedition". They were accompanied by the naturalist Alice Mackie. [25] The expedition visited many areas of Africa including the Congo where the group collected over 16,000 specimens, especially of bees. Once again numerous specimens of various species were collected by them that up until then had been unknown to science. [26] [27]

After Theodore retired, Cockerell spent her winters with her husband in California. They both worked as volunteer curators at the Desert Museum in Palm Springs, California, from 1941. They were not paid for this work but did receive housing as part compensation until 1945. In 1946 Cockerell and her husband began working at Escuela Agricola Panamericana in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. [7] After Theodore died in San Diego, California, in 1948, Cockerell taught at Piney Woods School near Jackson, Mississippi. [6]

Death

Cockerell died March 15, 1957, in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California. [2] She is buried in Columbia Cemetery, Boulder. [6] [28]

Bibliography

Taxa named in honor of Wilmatte Porter Cockerell

Felimare porterae FMIB 39586 Chromodoris porterae Cockerell Dorsal view.jpeg
Felimare porterae
Anthidium porterae Anthidium porterae, m, left side, Hidalgo Co. NM 2016-06-27-11.45 (27607741473).jpg
Anthidium porterae
Anthophora porterae Anthophora porterae, m, face, Shannon Co., SD 2018-06-19-13.45 (43532778792).jpg
Anthophora porterae

Plants

Animals

Mollusks

Sea slugs

Bees

Hemiptera

Related Research Articles

Cockerell is a surname, and may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice Eastwood</span> Canadian American botanist (1859–1953)

Alice Eastwood was a Canadian American botanist. She is credited with building the botanical collection at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. She published over 310 scientific articles and authored 395 land plant species names, the fourth-highest number of such names authored by any female scientist. There are seventeen currently recognized species named for her, as well as the genera Eastwoodia and Aliciella.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell</span> American entomologist (1866–1948)

Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell (1866–1948) was an entomologist and systematic biologist who published nearly 4,000 papers, some of them only a few lines long. Cockerell's speciality was the insect order Hymenoptera, an area of study where he described specimens from the United States, the West Indies, Honduras, the Philippines, Africa, and Asia. Cockerell named at least 5,500 species and varieties of bees and almost 150 genera and subgenera, representing over a quarter of all species of bees known during his lifetime. In addition to his extensive studies of bees, he published papers on scale insects, slugs, moths, fish scales, fungi, roses and other flowers, mollusks, and a wide variety of other plants and animals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bombini</span> Tribe of bees

The Bombini are a tribe of large bristly apid bees which feed on pollen or nectar. Many species are social, forming nests of up to a few hundred individuals; other species, formerly classified as Psithyrus cuckoo bees, are brood parasites of nest-making species. The tribe contains a single living genus, Bombus, the bumblebees, and some extinct genera such as Calyptapis and Oligobombus. The tribe was described by Pierre André Latreille in 1802.

<i>Palaeovespa</i> Extinct genus of insects

Palaeovespa is an extinct genus of wasp in the Vespidae subfamily Vespinae. The genus currently contains eight species, five from the Priabonian stage Florissant Formation in Colorado, United States two from the middle Eocene Baltic amber deposits of Europe. and one species from the late Paleocene of France.

Anthidium scudderi is an extinct species of mason bee in the Megachilidae genus Anthidium. The species is solely known from the late Eocene, Chadronian stage, Florissant Formation deposits in Florissant, Colorado, USA. Anthidium scudderi is one of only four extinct species of mason bees known from the fossil record, and with Anthidium exhumatum, one of two species from the Florissant Formation.

<i>Paleolepidopterites</i> Extinct fossil genus of tortrix moths

Paleolepidopterites is a collective genus of fossil moths which can not be placed in any defined family. The included species were formerly placed in the leaf-roller family Tortricidae and are known from fossils found in Russia and the United States. The collective genus contains three species: Paleolepidopterites destructus, Paleolepidopterites florissantanus, and Paleolepidopterites sadilenkoi, formerly placed within the genera Tortrix and Tortricites respectively. The three species were formally redescribed and moved to the new collective genus by Heikkilä et al (2018).

<i>Hydriomena</i>? <i>protrita</i> Extinct species of moth

Hydriomena? protrita is an extinct species of moth in the family Geometridae, and possibly in the modern genus Hydriomena. The species is known from late Eocene, Priabonian stage, lake deposits of the Florissant Formation in Teller County, Colorado, United States. It was first described by Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell in 1922.

<i>Felimare porterae</i> Species of gastropod

Felimare porterae is a species of sea slug, a dorid nudibranch, a shell-less marine gastropod mollusk in the family Chromodorididae. It was named by Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell in honor of his wife Wilmatte Porter Cockerell.

Protostephanus is an extinct genus of crown wasp in the Hymenoptera family Stephanidae known from an Eocene fossil found in the United States of America. The genus contains a single described species, Protostephanus ashmeadi placed in the stephanid subfamily Stephaninae.

Charlotte Cortlandt Ellis was an American amateur plant collector active in New Mexico. She discovered several plant taxa and collected some 500 plant specimens.

Megachile kirbyana is a species of bee in the family Megachilidae. It was described by Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell in 1906, from a specimen collected in Fremantle.

<i>Calyptapis</i> Extinct genus of bees

Calyptapis is an extinct bombini genus related to bumblebees with one described species Calyptapis florissantensis. It is known only from the Late Eocene Chadronian age shales of the Florissant Formation in Colorado. The genus and species were described by Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell in 1906.

Primula rusbyi is a species of Primula. A common name is Rusby's primrose.

Calliopsis puellae is a species of bee in the family Andrenidae. It is found in Central America and North America.

The Porter's miner bee is a species of miner bee in the family Andrenidae. It is found in North America. It was first described by Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell in 1900 and named after the collector of the type specimen Wilmatte Porter.

<i>Bombus irisanensis</i> Species of Philippine bumble bee

Bombus irisanensis is a rare species of bumblebee endemic to Luzon in the Philippines.

<i>Lasioglossum davide</i> Species of bee

Lasioglossum halictoides, also known as the Lasioglossum (Australictus) davide , is a species of bee in the subgenus Australictus of the genus Lasioglossum, in the Halictidae family. It was first described in 1910 by Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell as Halictus davidis, from a specimen collected at Kuranda, Queensland.

<i>Osmia cerasi</i> Species of bee

Osmia cerasi is a species of mason bee found in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico.

Marion Durbin Ellis was an American ichthyologist and entomologist. She is credited with conducting the most comprehensive study to date of the Hemigrammus genus of fish of which she named nineteen taxa. The taxon Corydoras ellisae and Hyphessobrycon ellisae are named for her as are the species Bryconops durbinae and Bryconacidnus ellisi.

References

  1. ↑ "Wilmatte Cockerell". geni.com. 28 July 1870. Archived from the original on 2019-12-10. Retrieved 2019-12-10.
  2. 1 2 GravesScribe. "Willmatte Porter Cockerell". Find a grave. Archived from the original on December 27, 2019. Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Taylor, Carol (15 July 2012). "Boulder history: Wilmatte Cockerell and the red sunflower". Daily Camera. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  4. 1 2 New Mexico Normal University (1900). Bulletin. New Mexico: New Mexico Normal University. p. 38.
  5. 1 2 3 Creese, Mary R. S.; Creese, Thomas M. (1998). Ladies in the Laboratory?: American and British Women in Science, 1800-1900: A Survey of Their Contributions to Research. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow. p. 71. ISBN   978-0810832879.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Weber, William A., ed. (2004). The Valley of the Second Sons: Letters of Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell, A Young English Naturalist, Writing to His Sweetheart and Her Brother About His Life in West Cliff, Wet Mountain Valley, Colorado, 1887-1890. Longmont, Colo.: Pilgrims Process. pp. i–xxi. ISBN   978-0971060999.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 "Featured Collections: Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell Papers". University Libraries. University of Colorado. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  8. 1 2 Scott, James A.; Fisher, Michael S. (2014). "Argynnis (Speyeria) nokomis nokomis: Geographic variation, metapopulations, and the origin of spurious specimens (Nymphalidae)" (PDF). Papilio. New Series. 21: 2–4. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 17, 2021. Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  9. ↑ Cockerell, Theodore Dru Alison (14 June 1901). "The New Mexico Biological Station". Science. 13 (337): 954. Bibcode:1901Sci....13..954C. doi:10.1126/science.13.337.954. PMID   17733662. Archived from the original on 12 October 2021. Retrieved 23 August 2020.
  10. ↑ Cockerell, Theodore Dru Alison; Porter, Wilmatte (1899). "VIII.—Contributions from the New Mexico biological station—IX. On certain genera of bees". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 7 (4): 403–421. Archived from the original on 10 June 2020. Retrieved 22 August 2020.
  11. ↑ "Wilmatte Porter Cockerell (1871-1957) and Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell (1866-1948)". Smithsonian Institution Archives. Smithsonian Institution. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  12. ↑ Cockerell, W. P. "Collecting Bees in Southern Texas". Journal of the New York Entomological Society Vol. 25, No. 3 (Sep., 1917), pp. 187–193
  13. ↑ Cockerell, W. P. "Some Aphids Associated With Ants". Psyche: A Journal of Entomology 10, no. 325-326 (1903), pp. 216–218
  14. ↑ Ewan, Joseph (1950). "Rocky Mountain Naturalists". The University of Denver Press.
  15. ↑ Porter Cockerell, Wilmatte (19 February 1904). "Note on a rubber-producing plant (in Special Articles)". Science Magazine . 19 (477): 314–315. doi:10.1126/science.19.477.314-b. PMID   17833327 . Retrieved 18 August 2020.
  16. ↑ Cockerell, Theodore Dru Alison (September 1904). "The North American Species of Hymenoxys". Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club. 31 (9): 486. doi:10.2307/2478737. hdl: 2027/hvd.32044107256828 . JSTOR   2478737.
  17. ↑ Cockerell, T.D.A. (1918). "The story of the red sunflower". The American Museum Journal. 18: 39–47. Archived from the original on 2020-12-10. Retrieved 2020-11-29– via Biodiversity Heritage Library.
  18. ↑ "Hendersons New Red Sunflowers". Biodiversity Heritage Library. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 26, 2015.
  19. ↑ Cockerell, Wilmatte Porter (1903). "A trip to the Truchas Peaks, New Mexico". The American Naturalist. 37 (444): 887–891. doi: 10.1086/278373 . Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  20. ↑ Rohwer, Sievert Allen (1915). "Vespoid and sphecoid Hymenoptera collected in Guatemala by WP Cockerell". Proceedings of the United States National Museum. 47 (2061): 513–523. doi:10.5479/si.00963801.2061.513. hdl:2027/hvd.32044072276637 . Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  21. ↑ Rose, J. N. "Rose, greenhouse cacti, 1912, 1919 - 1929" (PDF). Smithsonian Institution Collections Search Centre. Smithsonian Institution. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 22, 2015.
  22. ↑ Cockerell, T. D. A. (1919). "The bees of Peaceful Valley, Colorado". Journal of the New York Entomological Society. 4 (27): 298–300.
  23. ↑ Cockerell, T D A (March 1937). "Recollections of a Naturalist IV, The Amateur Botanist". BIOS. 8 (1): 12–18.
  24. ↑ "Boulder pair in quake zone". Denver Times. September 4, 1923.
  25. ↑ "Alice Mackie Diaries". cudl.colorado.edu. Archived from the original on 2021-02-17. Retrieved 2021-02-18.
  26. ↑ Cockerell, T. D. A.; Pilsbury, H. A. (June 1933). "21. African Mollusca, chiefly from the Belgian Congo". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. 103 (2): 365–375. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1933.tb01599.x.
  27. ↑ "Works by Cockerell, Theodore D. A. (Theodore Dru Alison), 1866-1948". Biodiversity Heritage Library . Archived from the original on 28 October 2020. Retrieved 19 August 2020.
  28. ↑ California Death Index, 1940-1997.
  29. ↑ Pollard, Charles Louis; Cockerell, Theodore Dru Alison (6 August 1902). "Four new plants from New Mexico". Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 15: 177–179. Archived from the original on 27 November 2020. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
  30. ↑ Brainerd, Ezra (June 1913). "Four Hybrids of Viola pedatifida". Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club. 40 (6): 259. doi:10.2307/2479736. JSTOR   2479736.
  31. ↑ Britton, Elizabeth Gertrude; Hollick, Arthur (1907). "American Fossil Mosses, with Description of a New Species from Florissant, Colorado". Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club. 34 (3): 139–142. doi:10.2307/2479149. ISSN   0040-9618. JSTOR   2479149. Archived from the original on 2020-12-09. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  32. ↑ Cockerell, T.D.A. (1926). "Plant and insect fossils from the Green River Eocene of Colorado". Proceedings of the United States National Museum. 66 (19): 1–16. doi:10.5479/si.00963801.66-2556.1. Archived from the original on 2021-10-12. Retrieved 2020-12-01.
  33. ↑ Britton, Nathaniel Lord; Rose, Joseph Nelson (1920). The Cactaceae : descriptions and illustrations of plants of the cactus family / by N.L. Britton and J.N. Rose. Vol. 2. Washington: Carnegie Institution of Washington. p. 195. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.46288. OCLC   2088052. Archived from the original on 2021-03-03. Retrieved 2021-05-24.
  34. ↑ Pilsbry, H. A.; Cockerell, T. D. A. (September 1899). "Another new Ashmunella". The Nautilus. 13: 49–50. Archived from the original on 2020-12-12. Retrieved 2020-11-30– via Biodiversity Heritage Library.
  35. ↑ Cockerell, T.D.A. (1902). "Three new species of Chromodoris". The Nautilus. 16 (2): 19–21. Archived from the original on 2020-11-07. Retrieved 2020-11-30– via Biodiversity Heritage Library.
  36. 1 2 3 Cockerell, Theodore Dru Alison (1900-05-01). "LIV.—Observations on bees collected at Las Vegas, New Mexico, and in the adjacent Mountains". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 5 (29): 401–416. doi:10.1080/00222930008678307. S2CID   85894354. Archived from the original on 2021-10-12. Retrieved 2020-11-30.
  37. ↑ Cockerell, Theodore Dru Alison (1933). "Bees collected at Borego, California, by Wilmatte P. Cockerell & Milene Porter". The Pan-Pacific Entomologist. 9 (1): 25–28. Archived from the original on 2021-10-12. Retrieved 2020-12-01– via Biodiversity Heritage Library.
  38. ↑ Cockerell, Theodore Dru Alison (1949-01-01). "Bees from Central America, Principally Honduras". Proceedings of the United States National Museum. 98 (3233): 429–490. doi:10.5479/SI.00963801.98-3233.429. Archived from the original on 2021-10-12. Retrieved 2020-12-01.
  39. ↑ King, George B. (1902-02-01). "Some new Coccidae". Entomological News, and Proceedings of the Entomological Section of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 13: 41–43. Archived from the original on 2021-10-12. Retrieved 2020-12-01– via Biodiversity Heritage Library.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.