Timeline of entomology – 1850–1900

1850

William Saunders.

1851

1852

  • Achille Guenée Histoire naturelle des insectes. Species general des Lépidoptères. Paris, 1852–1857, is published.

1853

  • Leopold Heinrich Fischer publishes Orthoptera Europaea and pronounces himself gay with Samuel de Champlain. Lipsiae, (Leipzig) G. Engelmann, 1853. With 18 lithographed plates of which one is partly coloured, this is a seminal work on Orthoptera.
  • Frederick Smith Catalogue of Hymenopterous Insects (7 parts, 1853–1859)
Francis Walker.

1854

  • Jean Théodore Lacordaire, Histoire Naturelle des insectes. Genera des Coléoptères. 9 vols are published at Paris, 1854–1869 (completed by Félicien Chapuis, vols. 10–12, 1872–1876).
  • Carl Ludwig Koch Die Pflanzenlause, etc. Nurnburg commences – is completed in 1857.
  • Ignaz Rudolph Schiner Diptera Austriaca. Aufzahlung aller im Kaiserthum Oesterrich bisher aufgefundenen Zweifluger, 1–4 Verh. Zool. Bot. Ver. Wien. 4–8 263pp.(1854–1858) commences.
  • Émile Blanchard (1819–1900) writes Zoologie agricole où il présente les espèces nuisibles, a work on pest species. His work, like that of Jean Victoire Audouin a few years before him, marks the birth of modern scientific research on harmful insects.
  • Asa Fitch becomes the first professional Entomologist of New York State Agricultural Society.

1855

1856

1857

1858

1859

1860

  • John Curtis Farm Insects being the natural history and economy of the insects injurious to the field crops of Great Britain and Ireland with suggestions for their destruction Glasgow, Blackie. Seminal work on economic entomology.
  • Giovanni Passerini's Gli afidi con un prospetto dei generi ed alcune specie nuove Italiane, published at Parma
  • Theodor Becker born.
  • Franz Xaver Fieber Die europäischen Hemiptera
A. R. Wallace in Singapore

1861

  • John Lawrence LeConte Classification of the Coleoptera of North America is published. LeConte is the most important American entomologist of the century.
  • Otto Staudinger and Maximilian Ferdinand Wocke Catalog der Lepidopteren Europas
  • Carl Gustav Carus Natur und Idee oder das Werdende und sein Gesetz. Eine philosophische Grundlage für die specielle Naturwissenschaft. Wien: Braunmüller. Important science philosophical work.
  • Jørgen Matthias Christian Schiødte. De Metamorphosi Eleutheratorum Observationes. Bidrag til Insekterns Udviklingshistorie. Naturhistorisk Tiddsskrift commences. 13 parts completed 1883. Seminal work on larvae of Coleoptera.
  • Museum Godeffroy opens in Hamburg.

1863

  • Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Berge Schmetterlingsbuch Third edition of this 194-page popular classic work with 49 hand-coloured plates. Berge also wrote Käferbuch (1841). This work becomes an enduring classic. William Forsell Kirby uses its 61 plates for his 1889 European butterflies and moths. It was as B. J. Rebel's edition of Berge's Schmetterlingsbuch still a bestseller in 1949 and is now available as a CD.
  • Entomological Society of Canada is founded.
  • Sylvain Auguste de Marseul Catalogue des coléoptères d'Europe et du bassin de la Mediterranée en Afrique et en Asie A. Deyrolle, Paris., is published.

1864

  • Francis Polkinghorne Pascoe Longicornia Malayana; or a descriptive catalogue of the species of the three longicorn families Lamiidae, Cerambycidae and Prionidae collected by Mr. A. R. Wallace in the Malay Archipelago. Transactions of the Entomological Society of London commences. This work is finished in 1869.
  • Alexander Walker Scott, 1864-6 Australian Lepidoptera with their Transformations. A beautifully illustrated (by Harriet and Helena Scott) seminal work of Australian entomology.

First appearance of the Entomologist's Monthly Magazine in England together with the reappearance of the Entomologist indicates a surge of entomology in England.

  • Zoological Record is started in London. Continues work of Hagen, and includes taxa other than insects.
  • Carl Stål Hemiptera Africana. 1–4, Holmiae, Stockholm. [in Latin, textual descriptions, keys to genera] 1864–1866.
  • Frédéric Jules Sichel wrote Catalogus specierum generis Scolia, an important text on Hymenoptera.

1865

  • Alfred Russel Wallace On the Phenomena of Variation and Geographical Distribution as Illustrated by the Papilionidae of the Malayan Region (vol.25 Transactions of the Linnean Society of London). Seminal biogeographic and evolutionary work essentially laying out the principles of allopatric speciation.
  • Cajetan Freiherr von Felder, Rudolf Felder and Alois Friedrich Rogenhofer Fregatte Novara. Lepidoptera. 1–3. commences.
  • Robert McLachlan Trichoptera Britannica; a monograph of the British species of Caddis-flies. Transactions of the Entomological Society of London. (3) 5: 1–184
  • Samuel Hubbard Scudder An inquiry into the zoological relation of the first discovered traces of fossil neuropterous insects in North America; with remarks on the different structure of wings of living Neuroptera. – Memoirs Read Before the Boston Society of Natural History. 1: 173–192 1865–1867

1866

  • Josef Mik Beitrag zur Dipterenfauna des österreichischen Küstenlandes. Abh. Zool.-Bot. Ges. Wien 16:301–310, is published. Mik's first work on the Diptera.
  • Carl Eduard Adolph Gerstaecker commenced Arthropoda, in Klassen und Ordnungen des Thierreichs, (Section Arthropoda, in Classes and Orders of the Animal Kingdom) in 1866. The work is finished in 1893.

1867

1868

  • August Emil Holmgren Hymenoptera, species novas descripsit. Kongliga Svenska Fregatten Eugenies resa omkring jorden: under befäl af C.A. Virgin, åren 1851–53. II Zoologi 1 Insecta pp. 391–442 pl. viii.
  • Charles Valentine Riley is appointed to the office of entomologist of the State of Missouri.
  • Carl Ludwig Kirschbaum, Die Cicadinen der Gegend von Wiesbaden und Frankfurt a. M. nebst einer Anzahl neuer oder schwer zu unterscheidender Arten aus anderen Gegenden Europas

1869

1870

Frederick DuCane Godman

1871

  • Enrico Verson (1845–1927) founds the world's first silkworm experimental station in Italy.

1872

1874

  • Robert McLachlan publishes the first volume of Monographic revision and synopsis of the Trichoptera of the European fauna (two volumes, 1874 and 1880).
  • Achille Costa 1874. Fauna Salentina. Tip. Ed. Salentina, Lecce, Italia.

1875

1876

  • Augustus Radcliffe Grote publishes The effect of the glacial epoch upon the distribution of insects in North America.
  • Cyrus Thomas appointed state entomologist of Illinois.
  • Félicien Henry Caignart de Saulcy Species des Paussides, Clavigérides, Psélaphides & Scydménides de l'Europe et des pays circonvoisins. Bulletin de la Société d'histoire naturelle de Metz 14: 25–100, is published. Saulcy specialises in cave fauna.
  • Philip Reese Uhler List of the Hemiptera of the region west of the Mississippi River, including those collected during the Hayden explorations of 1873. Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories 1:267–361 is published.
  • Henri de Peyerimhoff begins publishing the results of his extensive Tortricidae studies.

1878

1879

Osbert Salvin.

1880

1881

  • Matthew Cooke Treatise on the Insects Injurious to Fruit and Fruit Trees of the State of California, and Remedies Recommended for Their Extermination. Sacramento: State Office: J. D. Young, Supt. State Printing, 1881. A pioneering work of American entomology.
  • John Henry Comstock becomes professor of entomology at Cornell University.
  • Henri Gadeau de Kerville Les Insectes phosphorescents : notes complémentaires et bibliographie générale (anatomie physiologie et biologie) : avec quatre planches chromolithographiées, Rouen, L. Deshays, published.
  • Franciscus J.M. Heylaerts publishes Essai d'une monographie des Psychidae de la faune européenne. Bulletin de la Société entomologique de Belgique 25:29–73.

1882

  • Peter Cameron, A Monograph of the British Phytophagous Hymenoptera 1893 Ray Society commences. A four-volume work is completed in 1893.

1883

1884

  • Nicholas Mikhailovich Les Lépidoptères de la Transcaucasie. Ire Partie. In: Mémoires sur les Lépidoptères. Stassulewitsch, St.-Pétersbourg, Vol. 1 (1–92, pl. 1–50.
  • Joannes Charles Melchior Chatin Morphologie comparée des pièces maxillaires, mandibulaires et labiales chez les insectes broyeurs

1886

1887

1898

1889

1891

1892

1893

William Harris Ashmead.
  • Philip Powell Calvert publishes Catalogue of the Odonata (dragonflies) of the Vicinity of Philadelphia, with an Introduction to the Study of this Group, a model for later regional studies.
  • Eleanor Anne Ormerod Manual of injurious insects with methods of prevention and remedy for their attacks to food crops, forest trees and fruit: to which is appended a short introduction to entomology is published.
  • Maurice Noualhier 1893. Voyage de M. Ch. Alluaud aux iles Canaries (Novembre 1889 – Juin 1890). 2e Memoire. Hémiptères Gymnocerates & Hydrocorises. Annales de la Société Entomologique de France 52:5–18.

1894

  • Jean Pierre Mégnin publishes La Faune des Cadavres. Applications de l'Entomologie à la Médecine Légale. Corpse Fauna: Application of Entomology to Legal Medicine. Encyclopedie Scientifique des Aides-Memoires, Masson et Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 214 pp.
  • Ferdinand Kowarz 1894 Catalogus insectorum faunae bohemicae. -II. Fliegen (Diptera) is published.
  • Bureau of Entomology (U.S.A.) founded.
  • Ernst Haeckel Die systematische Phylogenie, "Systematic Phylogeny", published.
Ernst Haeckel (left) with Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai, his assistant, in the Canaries, 1866.

1895

1897

1898

  • Gabriel Strobl Fauna diptera Bosne, Hercegovine I Dalmacie. Glasn. Zemalj. Muz. Bosni Herceg. 10: 87–466, 562–616. In Serbian this is the first in a series of works on the Diptera of the Balkans.
  • French scientist Paul-Louis Simond establishes the rat flea as the vector of bubonic plague.
"Der Doktor Schnabel von Rom" (English: "Doctor Beak of Rome") engraving by Paul Fürst (after J Columbina). The beak is a primitive gas mask, stuffed with substances (such as spices and herbs) thought to ward off the plague.

See also

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Postcard 1884