Entomology

Zoology

Branches of Zoology

Acarology Arachnology Cetology Cryptozoology Entomology Ethology Herpetology Ichthyology Mammalogy Myrmecology Neuroethology Ornithology Paleozoology Anthrozoology

History

pre-Darwin post-Darwin

Not to be confused with Etymology, the study of the origin of words.

Entomology is the scientific study of insects. Insects are invertebrate animals of the Class Insecta of the Phylum Arthropoda. With around 925,000 described species, insects comprise the most numerous and diverse group of animals, representing more than half (about 57 percent) of all identified animal species.

Insects have many kinds of interactions with humans and other forms of life on earth, so it is an important specialty within biology. Though technically incorrect, the definition is sometimes widened to include the study of terrestrial animals in other arthropod groups or other phyla, such as arachnids, myriapods, earthworms, and slugs.

Applied entomology

Many entomologists are employed in the study of insects that are directly beneficial or harmful to humans. The study of beneficial insects is primarily focused on their ecology and life habits, the primary concern being the understanding of how to raise them and make them more productive (often as imported biological control agents), or protect them from human disturbance, if they are native species such as wild bees.

Conversely, much of the study of insects (and related arthropods) that directly harm human beings or their domestic animals (called medical entomology and veterinary entomology) is focused on their physiology, with the goal of developing insect controls that are effective while minimizing undesirable side effects. For instance, many types of insecticides have been developed that target unique aspects of insect physiology and are thus harmless to other kinds of animals. A risk to this approach is that insecticides can also kill beneficial insects. Considerable recent effort has gone into finding biological controls such as species-specific parasites and diseases, as well as genetic controls, such as the introduction of sterile insects into a population. The combination of taking into account all aspects of insect biology, available control measures, economics, and environmental considerations is known as integrated pest management.

A few insects, chiefly blood-sucking Diptera, are vectors for a wide range of deadly diseases. Mosquitoes are especially important disease vectors. A fuller discussion of applied entomology is given under the title Economic entomology.

Forensic entomology specializes in the study of insect ecology for use in the legal system, as knowledge of insect behavior can yield useful information about crimes. For example, the approximate time of death or whether or not a victim was alive during a fire may be determined by using facts such as what stage of life an insect found at the scene is in.

Identification of insects

Insects other than Lepidoptera are typically identifiable only through the use of Identification keys and Monographs. Because the class Insecta contains a very large number of species and the characters separating them are unfamiliar, and often subtle (or invisible without a microscope), this is often very difficult even for a specialist.

Insect identification is an increasingly common hobby, with butterflies and dragonflies being the most popular.

Taxonomic specialization

Part of a large beetle collection

Many entomologists specialize in a single order or even a family of insects, and a number of these subspecialties are given their own informal names, typically (but not always) derived from the scientific name of the group:

• Apiology (or melittology) - bees
• Coleopterology - beetles
• Dipterology - flies
• Heteropterology - true bugs
• Lepidopterology - moths and butterflies
• Myrmecology - ants
• Orthopterology - grasshoppers, crickets, etc.
• Trichopterology - caddis flies

History of entomology

With the vast numbers, diversity, and economic importance of insects, it is not surprising that entomology is rooted in nearly all human cultures from prehistoric times. However, scientific study only began as recently as the 16th century. Given the voluminous amount of informal and formal study of insects, only some brief overview of select key developments are presented in this section.

Early interest of humans in insects is shown in the rock painting of bees from approximately 13,000 B.C.E. Other early indicators include jewelry dated to about 1800 to 1700 B.C.E. from Crete depicting two golden bees holding a drop of honey; a painting around 1000 B.C.E. of a Scarab beetle on a wall of Rameses IX tomb; and a discussion of Ancient Egyptian beekeeping by Roman writers Virgil, Gaius Julius Hyginus, Varro, and Columella.

The first documented forensic entomology case is reported by Song Ci around 1250 C.E. in the medico-legal text book Xiyuan Jilu, where he describes the use of insects in the case of a stabbing near a rice field.

In 1551, zoologist Conrad Gesner published the first volume of Historia animalium (“History of Animals”), a work that includes some mention of insects.

Portrait de Conrad Gessner

In 1602, Ulisse Aldrovandi’s Animalibus insectis libri septem, cum singulorum iconibus AD vivum expressis was published. This work was devoted to the insects and some other invertebrates. More than a half-century later, between 1662 and 1667, Jan Goedart published Metamorphosis and historia naturalis illustrating, by copper plate engravings, the metamorphosis of various insects.

In 1669, Microscopist Jan Swammerdam published History of Insects, correctly describing the reproductive organs of insects and the process of metamorphosis. The same year the anatomist Marcello Malpighi published a treatise on the structure and development of the silkworm, the first description of the anatomy of an invertebrate. Shortly thereafter, from 1696 to 1700, Antonio Vallisneri’s Dialoghi will sopra the curiosa Origine di molti Insetti (in English, “Dialogues on the curious origin of several insects”) is published; in this manuscript he, with Francesco Redi and Malpighi, contradicts the theory of spontaneous generation of maggots.

In the 18th century, three kinds of entomological text appeared. First, there were illustrative works—showy insects, often beautifully colored—whose purpose was sensual or aesthetic. An example is afforded by Maria von Merian's Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamenis (“Transformations of the insects of Surinam,” 1705). It actually is a masterpiece of both art and science, and Merian, “the mother of entomology,” was the first to record the full life cycle of many species of butterflies and moths.

Second, there were descriptive and systematic (classificatory) works, usually confined to what are now known as the Insecta. In 1710, there was the first attempt at a systematic classification of insect species with the publication of John Ray’s Historia insectorum in English. Almost half-a-century later, in 1758, Carolus Linnaeus published his groundbreaking work Systema Naturae, wherein the binomial nomenclature as the convention for the naming of organisms was popularized with the scientific community. In 1761, Jacob Hübner (1761–1826), the first great world lepidopterist, was born. Before Hübner, it was held that there were few genera of Lepidoptera (butterflies), a view he overthrew. His definitions of genera remain among the best of the time and so were his classifications. Also, in 1766, Moses Harris published The Aurelian or Natural History of English Insects, namely Moths and Butterflies. This was the first book on the British Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths). Harris was a pioneer in using wing venation in insect systematics. In 1771, Johann Reinhold Forster produced the first list of American insects.

A third category of entomological texts in the eighteenth century were works advancing various subdisciplines, such as developmental biology (life cycles), internal anatomy, physiology, and so on. These often covered other invertebrate groups. An example is René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur's Memoires pour Servir a L’Historie des Insectes.

In this century, a founding work of the scientific study of entomology was microscopist Jan Swammerdam's Biblia naturae or "Book of Nature", which was reissued in 1737. 

From the beginning of the nineteenth century, the specialist began to predominate, harbingered by Johann Wilhelm Meigen's Nouvelle classification des mouches à deux aile (New classification of the Diptera) in the first year of the century. Lepidopterists were amongst the first to follow Meigen’s lead. The specialists fell into three categories. First, there were species describers, then specialists in species recognition, and then specialists in gross taxonomy. There were, however, considerable degrees of overlap. Also, then, as now, few could entirely resist the lure of groups other than their own, and this was especially true of those in small countries where they were the sole 'expert', and many famous specialists in one order also worked on others. Hence, for instance, many works that began as butterfly faunas were completed as general regional works, often collaboratively.

In 1801, Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de Lamarck published Système des animaux sans vertèbres ou tableau généraldes classes des ordres et des genres de ces animaux (“System of invertebrate animals or general table of classes, orders and genera of these animals.” The same year, Johann Christian Fabricius commenced a series of works in which he developed a classificatory system based entirely on the structure of the mouthparts, and in Pisa, Italy, Pietro Rossi becomes the world's first professor of entomology.

In 1806, André Marie Constant Duméril’s Analitische Zoologie, published in both French and German, was an important text for its methodology and higher classification of insects. .

Commencing in 1815 and completed in 1826, William Kirby and William Spence’s Introduction to entomology or elements of the natural history of insects (4 vols., London: Longman) is a masterpiece that makes an outstanding contribution to entomology, and it was one of the most popular scientific works of all time.

In 1817, the pioneering work of American entomology is published in Philadelphia, Thomas Say's American entomology. In 1859, the Entomological Society of Philadelphia was established, later (1867) to be renamed the American Entomological Society. This is the earliest national organization in the biological sciences in the United States.

In 1871, Enrico Verson (1845-1927) founded the world’s first silkworm experimental station in Italy.

In 1900, Walter Reed, a United States Army major, was appointed president of a board "to study infectious diseases in Cuba paying particular attention to yellow fever." He concurred with Carlos Finlay in identifying mosquitoes as the agent of transmission. In 1902, Ronald Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his discovery that malaria is carried by mosquitoes. The awarding committee made special mention of the work of Giovanni Battista Grassi on the life history of the "Plasmodium" parasite (a protozoan that uses the mosquito as a host).

In 1934, Vincent B. Wigglesworth, the “Father of Insect Physiology,” wrote the first book on the subject, The Principles of Insect Physiology.

Organizations

Like other scientific specialties, entomologists have a number of local, national, and international organizations. There are also many organizations specializing in specific subareas.

• Amateur Entomologists' Society
• Deutsches Entomologisches Institut
• Entomological Society of America
• Entomological Society of Canada
• Royal Belgian Entomological Society
• Royal Entomological Society of London
• Société Entomologique de France

Museums

Many museums contain very large and important insect collections. Here is a list of some of the most important.

Europe

• Natural History Museum, Vienna Naturhistorisches Museum.
• Natural History Museum, Paris Muséum national d'histoire naturelle
• Natural History Museum, Berlin Humboldt Museum
• Natural History Museum, London Natural History Museum
• Royal Museum for Central Africa, Brussels Royal Museum for Central Africa
• Natural History Museum, Leiden Natural History Museum, Leiden
• Natural History Museum, Sweden Swedish Museum of Natural History
• Natural History Museum, St. Petersburg Zoological Collection of the Russian Academy of Science
• Natural History Museum, Geneva [1]

United States

• National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC
• American Museum of Natural History, New York
• California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco
• Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago
• Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, Los Angeles
• Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia
• University of Kansas Natural History Museum, Lawrence, KS
• University of Nebraska State Museum, Lincoln, NE
• Peabody Museum of Natural History, New Haven

Canada

• Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
• Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa
• Montreal Insectarium, Montreal

See also

• List of entomologists
• List of entomological journals
• Insects on stamps

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Mathilde M. Carpenter, 1953 Bibliography of Biographies of Entomologists (Supplement) American Midland Naturalist, Vol. 50, No. 2 (Oct., 1953), pp. 257-348.

External links

• Professor Andrew Speilman. Malaria video. Retrieved 2006-12-09.
• Rob Hutchinson. Mosquitoes video. Retrieved 2006-12-09.
• University of Vermont. Entomology Laboratory. Retrieved 2006-12-09.
• Iowa State University. Annotated Entomology directory. Retrieved 2006-12-09.
• Meganeura, University of Barcelona. Fosil Insects. Retrieved 2006-12-09.
• Goliathus (Entomology hobbyist site). Retrieved 2006-12-09.
• Linda Treadwell. Coleoptera (Beetles). Retrieved 2006-12-09.
• Medical Entomology images. Retrieved 2006-12-09.
• University of Nebraska State Museum. Division of Entomology. Retrieved 2006-12-09.
• Graeme Cocks. Insects of Townsville, Australia. Retrieved 2006-12-09.
• Actronic. Compendium of References on Flies and Disease. Retrieved 2006-12-09.

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1749

• Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière (1749–1788) commenced— 36 volumes and 8 additional volumes published after his death by Bernard Germain Étienne comte de La Ville-sur-Illon La Cépède.Until the publication of this encyclopedia it was thought that all animals were created together by God about 6,000 years ago. Not only did this 44 volume encyclopedia contain all biological knowledge of its time, it offered a different theory. 100 years before Darwin, Buffon claimed that man and ape might have a common ancestor. His work also had significant impact on ecology.