Frank M. Carpenter received his PhD from Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, and was curator of fossil insects at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology

Museum of Comparative Zoology

The Museum of Comparative Zoology, full name "The Louis Agassiz Museum of Comparative Zoology", often abbreviated simply to "MCZ", is a zoology museum located on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is one of three museums which collectively comprise the Harvard Museum...

 for 60 years. He studied the Permian

Permian

The PermianThe term "Permian" was introduced into geology in 1841 by Sir Sir R. I. Murchison, president of the Geological Society of London, who identified typical strata in extensive Russian explorations undertaken with Edouard de Verneuil; Murchison asserted in 1841 that he named his "Permian...

 fossil insects of Elmo, Kansas

Elmo, Kansas

Elmo is a small unincorporated community in Dickinson County, Kansas, United States. The post office was established December 16, 1884, and discontinued May 6, 1966. The well-known Elmo fossil insect bed is southeast of town.-External links:*...

, and compared the North American fossil insect fauna with Paleozoic taxa known from elsewhere in the world. A careful and methodical worker, he used venation and mouthparts to determine the relationships of fossil taxa, and was author of the Treatise

Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology

The Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology published by the Geological Society of America and the University of Kansas Press, is a definitive multi-authored work of some 50 volumes, written by more than 300 paleontologists, and covering every phylum, class, order, family, and genus of fossil and...

volume on Insects. He reduced the number of extinct insect orders then described from about fifty to nine.

Entomologists David Grimaldi

David Grimaldi

David A. Grimaldi is an entomologist and Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He received his graduate training at Cornell University, where he earned his doctorate in Entomology in 1986. Dr. Grimaldi is an authority in many fields of insect...

 and Michael S. Engel

Michael S. Engel

Michael S. Engel is an American paleontologist and entomologist. He has undertaken field work in Central Asia, Asia Minor, and the Western Hemisphere, and published more than 300 papers in scientific journals. He was trained at the University of Kansas where in 1993 he received a B.S. in Cellular...

 consider him "the most influential paleoentomologist of his generation" (Grimaldi and Engel 2005 p.143). He has been memorialized frequently with patronyms, including the scorpionfly Bittacus carpenteri Cheng, 1957, the fossil parasitic wasp

Parasitic wasp

The term parasitoid wasp refers to a large evolutionary grade of hymenopteran superfamilies, mainly in the Apocrita. They are primarily parasitoids of other animals, mostly other arthropods...

 Carpenteriana tumida Yoshimoto, 1975, the fossil snakefly

Snakefly

Snakeflies are a group of insects in the order Raphidioptera, consisting of about 210 extant species. Together with the Megaloptera they were formerly placed within the Neuroptera, but now these two are generally regarded as separate orders....

 Fibla carpenteri Engel, 1995, the fossil ant

Ant

Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...

 Protrechina carpenteri Wilson, 1985, and the caddisfly Rhyacophila carpenteri Milne, 1936.

External links

• The Permian Insect Fossils of Elmo, Kansas by Roy J. Beckemeyer