Charles Remington

Charles Lee Remington (born January 19, 1922 in Reedville , Virginia ; † May 31, 2007 in Hamden , Connecticut ) was a world-famous American entomologist ( entomologist ), "father" of modern lepidopterology (butterfly studies) and co-founder of the Lepidopterists' Society .

biography

Charles Lee Remington was born in 1922 in Reedville, Virginia, the son of elementary school director P (ardon) Sheldon Remington and his wife Maud. His family moved to St. Louis ( Missouri ), where Remington was growing up.

His father was an avid butterfly collector and so the interest of the young Charles Remington in this area of ​​the animal world was aroused. After leaving school, Remington studied at Principia College in Elsah ( Illinois ), where he did his BS ( Bachelor of Science) in 1943 . During World War II , he served in the US Army in the Pacific theater as a medical entomologist. In the Philippines in particular , he investigated epidemics caused by insect bites, including centipede bites , which affected numerous American soldiers.

After the end of World War II, he studied at Harvard University . Here he examined the systematics of Thysanura and other primitive arthropods with the renowned entomologist Frank M. Carpenter (1902-1994) .

In 1947, while still a student, he and his college friend, Harry Kendon Clench (1925–1979) founded the Lepidopterists' Society , which currently has more than 10,000 members - the majority in the United States and Canada. Together with Clench he also edited the scientific journal Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society . In 1948 he graduated with a doctorate ( Ph. D. ) and became a professor in the Faculty of Biology at Yale University in the same year . Although Yale already had an excellent biology faculty , Remington was the first entomologist in the department.

In 1958/59 he received a Guggenheim scholarship for the University of Oxford , where he worked with the renowned British gene researcher EB Ford .

Remington remained loyal to Yale University for the entire duration of his teaching career and taught at this university for 44 years, as well as the affiliated Peabody Museum of Natural History , the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies and the Institute for Social & Policy Studies .

Remington had encyclopedic knowledge, and his research and teaching activities were accordingly broad, interdisciplinary and encompassed: ecology , evolution , genetics , bioethics , the ever-decreasing biodiversity , with his favorite subjects remaining the entomology and biology of terrestrial arthropods. Another focus of his scientific work was research into the formation of new species in isolated habitats ("island biology"). He was able to draw on observations that he had made during World War II when he examined more than 75 islands in the Philippines.

Among other things, Remington advocated the thesis that there are geographical zones in the world - which he calls "suture zones" - in which different species of plants, insects and mammals tend to mix with close relatives ( "hybridize" ) . The scientific world initially regarded this thesis as untenable, but has recently taken it up again. From 1950 to the 1980s he and his students traveled regularly in the summer months to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory , near Gothic ( Colorado ), to study the ecosystems of the various high altitude zones. The different biotopes in high mountain heights are isolated in a similar way to those on islands and therefore comparable to these.

Remington supervised over eighty postgraduate students and generations of up-and-coming scientists, and his enthusiasm for the subject brought many young people to this branch of research.

Under Remington's direction, the over one million insect collection of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University was created. 2001 were in this collection more than 270 000 day and moths , including the world biggest collection of insects, some of which male and partly female, as gynandromorph be called.

In 1992 he retired from Yale University, Chair of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies .

In addition to founding the Lepidopterists' Society , Remington sponsored the founding of the Connecticut Entomological Society , the Xerces Society . Remington was a co-founder of the organization Zero Population Growth ( zero growth / since 2002 this organization called Population Connection ), whose aim was the public's attention to the problem of overpopulation to steer.

In 1970 he organized the Convention on Optimal Population and Environment in Chicago, together with the former governor of Colorado Richard Lamm and his research colleague Paul R. Ehrlich (author of The Population Bomb ), for many other conferences and events on the subject of population growth and overpopulation and their impact on the environment.

Charles Lee Remington died on May 31, 2007 at the age of 85 in Hamden, Connecticut.

Private

Charles Lee Remington was married to Jeanne Remington for the first time. From this marriage the three children Eric, Sheldon and Janna were born. He concluded a second marriage with Ellen Mahoney.

Web links

• Yale University Obituary
• Obituary in Boston Herald.com
• Report on the Peabody Museum of Natural History / Division of Entomology (Eng.)