Horace Donisthorpe
Encyclopedia
Horace St. John Kelly Donisthorpe (17 March 1870 – 22 April 1951) was an eccentric British
myrmecologist and coleopterist, memorable in part for his enthusiastic championing of the renaming of the genus
Lasius
after him as Donisthorpea, and for his many claims of discovering new species of beetle
s and ant
s.
He is often considered to be the greatest figure in British myrmecology.
and Oakham School
, Donisthorpe went to Heidelberg University to read medicine
. However, his "too sensitive nature" forced him to give up this career. Being possessed of a private income, from about 1890 he devoted his life to the study of beetles and ants.
Probably the best known of his collecting grounds were the ancient forests of Windsor
Great Park in Berkshire where he had permission to collect extensively and where so many of his important discoveries were made.
During his career he associated with many other prominent British entomologists, including Canon Fowler
, with whom he co-authored the last volume of 'Coleoptera of the British Islands, and A.A. Allen.
Donisthorpe was controversial in part because he was often considered overeager in his attempts to describe new species of ants and beetles. For example, he named 24 new species of beetle from Britain (17 named after his colleagues), but 22 have since been deemed to be insufficiently distinct to be considered separate species and have been made synonyms
of earlier species. The only two British beetle species that he described which remain valid are the rove beetles:
Species which Donisthorpe described anew that turned out to have been previously classified include (from New Species of Ants (Hym., Formicidae) from the Gold Coast, Borneo, Celebes, New Guinea and New Hebrides):
Polyrhachis hosei provides an interesting demonstration of Donisthorpe's zeal for new species coming into conflict with existing ones. His description starts: "The general description of P.(M.) byyani would do equally well for this species..." and then goes on to describe a small number of very minor differences: "a larger and more robust insect", "pronotal spines longer", "the scale has a somewhat wider arch", and so on.
Donisthorpe was a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London
and a Fellow and Vice-Chairman of the Royal Entomological Society. He resided at 58, Kensington Mansions, and was known for his lavish parties, which led to the dissipation of much of his family fortune. He was an associate of Auguste-Henri Forel
, with whom he stayed in Switzerland
in 1914.
Donisthorpe's extensive and beautifully curated collection of British beetles is housed at the Department of Entomology
at the Natural History Museum
.
and in his work at the Natural History Museum
, London
, often wrote of and described new species and species' habits from all around the world in various entomological journals, such as Annals and Magazine of Natural History.
Donisthorpe also wrote two chapters of Wild Life the World Over: Comprising Twenty-Seven Chapters Written by Nine Distinguished World-Traveled Specialists, which was published in 1953, two years after his death.
in which he collected and recorded unusual species of British ants
and beetles:
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
myrmecologist and coleopterist, memorable in part for his enthusiastic championing of the renaming of the genus
Genus
In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...
Lasius
Lasius
Lasius Latr. is a genus of boreal formicine ants.Included within this genus is the common black garden ant, Lasius niger, and its close relatives from dry heathland, L. alienus and L. neoniger....
after him as Donisthorpea, and for his many claims of discovering new species of beetle
Beetle
Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek , koleos, "sheath"; and , pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms...
s and 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...
s.
He is often considered to be the greatest figure in British myrmecology.
Biography
Educated at Mill Hill House, LeicesterLeicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
and Oakham School
Oakham School
Oakham School is a British co-educational independent school in the historic market town of Oakham in Rutland, accepting around 1,000 pupils, aged from 10 to 18, both male and female, as boarders and day pupils . The Good Schools Guide called the school "a privileged but unpretentious and...
, Donisthorpe went to Heidelberg University to read medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
. However, his "too sensitive nature" forced him to give up this career. Being possessed of a private income, from about 1890 he devoted his life to the study of beetles and ants.
Probably the best known of his collecting grounds were the ancient forests of Windsor
Windsor, Berkshire
Windsor is an affluent suburban town and unparished area in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England. It is widely known as the site of Windsor Castle, one of the official residences of the British Royal Family....
Great Park in Berkshire where he had permission to collect extensively and where so many of his important discoveries were made.
During his career he associated with many other prominent British entomologists, including Canon Fowler
William Weekes Fowler
William Weekes Fowler was an English clergyman and entomologist mainly interested in beetles.-Biography:Son of the Reverend Hugh Fowler, Vicar of Barnwood, Gloucestershire, Fowler was educated at Rugby School and at Jesus College, Oxford. He became a Master at Repton School in 1873 and was...
, with whom he co-authored the last volume of 'Coleoptera of the British Islands, and A.A. Allen.
Donisthorpe was controversial in part because he was often considered overeager in his attempts to describe new species of ants and beetles. For example, he named 24 new species of beetle from Britain (17 named after his colleagues), but 22 have since been deemed to be insufficiently distinct to be considered separate species and have been made synonyms
Synonym (taxonomy)
In scientific nomenclature, a synonym is a scientific name that is or was used for a taxon of organisms that also goes by a different scientific name. For example, Linnaeus was the first to give a scientific name to the Norway spruce, which he called Pinus abies...
of earlier species. The only two British beetle species that he described which remain valid are the rove beetles:
- Leptacinus intermediusLeptacinus intermediusLeptacinus intermedius is a European rove beetle, described in 1935 by Horace Donisthorpe. Like most staphylinids, L. intermedius and its larvae are predatory upon other insects. Members of this family can usually be identified by their very short elytra, which leave three to six abdominal segments...
, - Ilyobates bennetti.
Species which Donisthorpe described anew that turned out to have been previously classified include (from New Species of Ants (Hym., Formicidae) from the Gold Coast, Borneo, Celebes, New Guinea and New Hebrides):
- Aenictus bidentatus,
- Rhytidoponera gagates,
- Diacamma rugosum,
- Leptogenys walkeri (Donisthorpe noted: "I have much pleasure in naming this ant in honour of my dear friend the late Commander J. J. Walker, RNRoyal NavyThe Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
"), - Leptogenys violacea,
- Polyrhachis bryanti,
- and Polyrhachis hosei.
Polyrhachis hosei provides an interesting demonstration of Donisthorpe's zeal for new species coming into conflict with existing ones. His description starts: "The general description of P.(M.) byyani would do equally well for this species..." and then goes on to describe a small number of very minor differences: "a larger and more robust insect", "pronotal spines longer", "the scale has a somewhat wider arch", and so on.
Donisthorpe was a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London
Zoological Society of London
The Zoological Society of London is a charity devoted to the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats...
and a Fellow and Vice-Chairman of the Royal Entomological Society. He resided at 58, Kensington Mansions, and was known for his lavish parties, which led to the dissipation of much of his family fortune. He was an associate of Auguste-Henri Forel
Auguste-Henri Forel
Auguste-Henri Forel was a Swiss myrmecologist, neuroanatomist and psychiatrist, notable for his investigations into the structure of the human brain and that of ants. For example, he is considered a co-founder of the neuron theory...
, with whom he stayed in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
in 1914.
Donisthorpe's extensive and beautifully curated collection of British beetles is housed at the Department of Entomology
Entomology
Entomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...
at the Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
.
Books
- The Coleoptera of the Isle of Wight. Published in 1906 by the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society. The supplementary sixth volume was compiled with W. W. Fowler to the latter's Coleoptera of the British Isles in 1913;
- British Ants: their life histories and classification. First published in 1915, this book was reviewed and republished in 1927, and was the first major book ever written on British ants. Although the first edition contained all the speciesSpeciesIn biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
known at the time (and one, Leptothorax corticalis which was lated found to be erroneous), the second edition contained the addition of Lasius brunneus, a small, arboreal ants of the Lasius mixtus group found principally in orchards in the home countiesHome CountiesThe home counties is a term which refers to the counties of South East England and the East of England which border London, but do not include the capital city itself...
. The 1927 edition was, however, too early for any mention of Strongylodus testaceus, which Donisthorpe discovered (and described as a new species, S. diveri) in the New ForestNew ForestThe New Forest is an area of southern England which includes the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in the heavily-populated south east of England. It covers south-west Hampshire and extends into south-east Wiltshire....
several years later.
- The Guests of British Ants. Published in 1927, the same year as the revision of British Ants: their life histories and classification took place. This book deals with myrmecophiles of British ants, some of them ants themselves (e.g. Formicoxenus and AnergatesAnergatesAnergates is a single-species genus of tetramorine Myrmicine ants. It is a worker-less obligate parasite to Tetramorium caespitum, the "lawn ant" or "pavement ant", and is thought to have evolved as an aberrant form of the genus Tetramorium....
). It also mentions and debunks theories regarding the effect that the presence of a species of beetle (of the genus Atemeles) has on the number of pseudogynes in colonies of the larger formica (ant) species.
- An Annotated List of the Additions to the British Coleopterous Fauna. Published in 1931, the title serves to be self-explanatory.
- A Preliminary List of the Coleoptera of Windsor Forest. Published in 1939, Donisthorpe dedicated the book to the memory of Florence Jane Kirk, his constant companion on collecting trips. In it he writes: "In memory of Jane Kirk, whose patience, skill, and unfailing energy were of invaluable help in attaining the results set forth in these pages." The book consists of a preamble detailing the various features of Windsor Great Park and its ancient forests, and a list of the many hundreds of Coleoptera Donisthorpe collected there, with brief habitat details for each species.
Other writings
Donisthorpe, as chair of the Zoological Society of LondonZoological Society of London
The Zoological Society of London is a charity devoted to the worldwide conservation of animals and their habitats...
and in his work at the Natural History Museum
Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is one of three large museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, England . Its main frontage is on Cromwell Road...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, often wrote of and described new species and species' habits from all around the world in various entomological journals, such as Annals and Magazine of Natural History.
Donisthorpe also wrote two chapters of Wild Life the World Over: Comprising Twenty-Seven Chapters Written by Nine Distinguished World-Traveled Specialists, which was published in 1953, two years after his death.
Locations in Britain visited by Horace Donisthorpe
Donisthorpe visited many locations in the British IslesBritish Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...
in which he collected and recorded unusual species of British ants
British ants
This is a list of ants of Great Britain, including endemic and introduced species. Compared with much of the rest of Europe, Great Britain has a smaller number of ants...
and beetles:
- AviemoreAviemoreAviemore is a town and tourist resort, situated within the Cairngorms National Park in the Highlands of Scotland. It is in the Badenoch and Strathspey committee area, within the Highland council area. The town is popular for skiing and other winter sports, and for hill-walking in the Cairngorm...
, Morayshire - Chobham commonChobham CommonChobham Common is a area of lowland heath a globally rare and threatened habitat, in Surrey, England. It was formerly a freehold owned by the Earl of Onslow, and purchased for £1 an acre by Surrey County Council in 1966...
. nr. ChobhamChobham, SurreyChobham is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Surrey Heath in Surrey, England, about 15 minutes drive from the London railway line stations at Woking to the south and Sunningdale to the north...
, SurreySurreySurrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of... - Box Hill, SurreySurreySurrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
- Nethy BridgeNethy BridgeNethy Bridge is a small village in Strathspey in the Highland Council Area of Scotland. It is located in the historical parish of Abernethy and Kincardine...
, Morayshire - Parkhurst forestParkhurst ForestParkhurst Forest is a woodland to the north-west of Newport, Isle of Wight .The site is partly a site of special scientific interest. It consists of both ancient woodland, relict heathland and plantation woodland. The woodland is freehold owned and managed by the Forestry Commission. It is 395...
, Isle of WightIsle of WightThe Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent... - RannochRannochRannoch is an area of the Scottish Highlands between the A9 road, to the east, and the A82, to the west. The area is crossed from south to north by the West Highland railway line....
, PerthshirePerthshirePerthshire, officially the County of Perth , is a registration county in central Scotland. It extends from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, Rannoch Moor and Ben Lui in the west, and Aberfoyle in the south... - The New ForestNew ForestThe New Forest is an area of southern England which includes the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in the heavily-populated south east of England. It covers south-west Hampshire and extends into south-east Wiltshire....
, including Matley BogMatley BogMatley Bog is an ancient woodland bog in the New Forest, Hampshire, England.It is notable for the presence of the rare ant, Formica candida, sometimes called the shining bog ant, which was discovered there in the early 20th century by Horace Donisthorpe.the wetter areas contain the rare and...
, HampshireHampshireHampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force... - SandownSandownSandown is a seaside resort town and civil parish on the southeast coast of the Isle of Wight, England, neighbouring the town of Shanklin to the south. Sandown Bay is the name of the bay off the English Channel which both towns share, and it is notable for its long stretch of easily accessible...
, Isle of WightIsle of WightThe Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent... - WeybridgeWeybridgeWeybridge is a town in the Elmbridge district of Surrey in South East England. It is bounded to the north by the River Thames at the mouth of the River Wey, from which it gets its name...
, principally Weybridge heathWeybridge HeathWeybridge Heath is a part of Weybridge common.The Heath comprises 47 acres of lowland heathland that runs from the deep cutting of the South Western Main Line railway eastwards to Cobbetts Hill...
, SurreySurreySurrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...