Douglas Waterhouse

Douglas Frew Waterhouse , also Doug Waterhouse (born June 1, 1916 in Sydney , † December 3, 2000 ), was an Australian entomologist .

Waterhouse, whose mother and father Eben Gowrie Waterhouse were both language teachers (his father was also a university professor in Sydney and later a camellia breeder and researcher), became interested in insects and collected beetles as a teenager. His uncle Gustavus Athol Waterhouse , a chemical engineer by profession, was a well-known butterfly researcher. He graduated from the University of Sydney (Master's degree in 1938). From 1938 he did research for the Australian research organization CSIRO (then CSIR) and stayed there until his retirement in 1981.

After the Second World War he was on a research stay with Vincent Wigglesworth in Cambridge, who was considered the father of insect physiology. Although he did not receive a Ph.D., which you could not get in Australia at the time, he received a D.Sc. in Sydney. From 1954 he was deputy director of the entomology department at CSIRO and from 1960 director.

Right at the beginning of his work at CSIRO, he made significant progress in combating the Australian sheep blowfly Lucilia curpina , which causes great damage in sheep populations there. It was possible to develop a poison against the larvae, which unfolded its effectiveness in the acidic environment of the intestines of the larvae and was based on borax or boric acid. Together with a contact poison it was the basis of an effective wound therapy for the sheep that killed the maggots (BKB). During World War II he was intensely involved in the fight against malaria among Australian troops in New Guinea. There he successfully tested the repellent dimethyl phthalate against mosquitoes, following a tip from the Standard Oil Corporation from their experience in South America.

In the 1950s he also dealt with insects (moths, beetles) that are harmful to wool and possible insecticides against them. One point of attack was the finding that they break down the keratin of wool in the intestine under strongly alkaline conditions by breaking the sulfur-sulfur bond between the main amino acid component cysteine . They also found that the insects had developed effective methods against inorganic poisons. Finally, research was pushed to the background when the organic chlorine compound dieldrin emerged as an insecticide against wool pests. He also researched goblet cells in the intestines of insects, where they served as a depot for complex compounds containing toxic substances for the insects.

When he became head of the entomology department of the CSIRO himself, he was able to realize his plan to edit a new edition of the standard work on Australian insects by Robin John Tillyard . In contrast to the first edition from 1926 (Tillyard: Insects of Australia and New Zealand ), around 30 scientists were now working on it under the editor Ian Mackerras. Waterhouse also arranged for the CSIRO to look into expanding the inventory of Australian insects, only a small part of which was known, as part of the overall Australian biological inventory.

He also dealt with biological control of harmful insects. A particular plague, the Australian bush fly, spread mainly through the dung from cattle, which was introduced in 1778 and for whose dung there were no natural resources to break down the dung heaps effectively and quickly. These also made the pastures partially unusable for grazing cattle, as the grasses around the dung heaps were too high in nitrogen for the cattle. To counter this, a wide range of species of dung beetles were introduced from Africa under his leadership. Under his direction, it was also possible to develop a repellent for the bush fly.

He was CMG , Foreign Member of the Royal Society , was a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Sciences in 1954 and was Secretary of its Biology Department from 1961 to 1966, became a Foreign Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1983 and was Officer of the Order of Australia. In 1972 he received the Mueller Medal of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science .

From 1969 to 1972 he was President of the Australian Entomological Society .

literature

• MF Day, MJ Whitten, DPA Sands: Douglas Frew Waterhouse, CMG 3 June 1916-1 December 2000 , Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, Volume 48, 2002, pp. 459-481.

Web links

• Dr Douglas Waterhouse (1916-2000), entomologist , interview 1913, Australian Academy of Sciences