Neal L. Evenhuis

Neal Luit Evenhuis , birth name Kornelus Luit Evenhuis , official name change 2013 (born April 16, 1952 in Upland , California ), is an American entomologist and expert on zoological nomenclature . He works at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu , Hawaii and has described more than 600 species of flies since 1976 . The bizarre species names often given by him have also made him well known outside of the professional world.

Family and education

Neal L. Evenhuis was born in Southern California in 1952 to Dutch immigrants who had left their homeland in 1938. He studied biology at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona and received a Bachelor of Science degree in botany and entomology in 1974 . In 1976 he joined the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Honolulu , Hawaii as a scientific illustrator . Two years later he received his Masters in Biology , again from California State Polytechnic University . Within a few years he started research with taxonomic studies of Pacific flies . In 1988 he received his doctorate from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu for the Ph.D. in entomology. Since 2012 he has been head of entomological research at the Bishop Museum.

research

Evenhuis' research focuses on two families of flies , the woolly flyers and the Mythicomyiidae . He has described numerous recent and fossil taxa , his first descriptions include several partial orders and families , more than 70 genera and more than 600 species. He is the author or co-author of more than 500 publications, including some monographs that are considered standard works. In 1992 he received the Thomas Say Award from the Entomological Society of America for his research . Evenhuis was President of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature from 2001 to 2007 . His areas of interest include the history of science , namely the history of dipterology and zoological nomenclature . He works at Hawaiian schools to teach students how to differentiate between indigenous species and neobiota .

Scientific humor

Evenhuis is known among entomologists for its sense of humor. Some of the scientific names he has given have attracted public attention. In 1985 he named a newly discovered wool swimmer Phthiria relativitae , pronounced in English roughly like Theory o 'relativity , alluding to the theory of relativity . In order to have the first description published and to avoid criticism from his colleagues, he had to publish his discovery in a Polish magazine. Today the species belongs to the genus Poecilognathus .

In 2002 he named the extinct fly species of the Mythicomyiidae family Carmenelectra shechisme after the American actress and singer Carmen Electra . In the first description of the then only species, he justified his naming for the genus with the fact that both name bearers had a "great" physique for their respective taxon. The species name shechisme (pronounced like she kiss me , German: she kisses me or she should kiss me ) is an arbitrarily chosen combination of letters. In 2013 he described another species of the genus as Carmenelectra shehuggme (German: she should hug me ).

In 2001, Evenhuis and his colleague Marcos Báez described the type Reissa roni , named after the popular American rice and noodle mix Rice-A-Roni , where he chose the name in the first description as a tribute to the late German entomologist Friedrich Reiss and his colleague Ron Englund designated. In 2002 Evenhuis described the types Pieza kake , Pieza pi and Pieza deresistans based on the dish pizza . In 2013 he gave a species of fly from French Polynesia the name Campsicnemus popeye , as it reminds of the cartoon character Popeye because of the thickened tibiae of its legs .

Initial descriptions (selection)

• Partial order † Anisopodomorpha Krzeminski & Evenhuis , 2000
• Partial order † Nadipteromorpha Krzeminski & Evenhuis , 2000
• Family † Serendipidae Evenhuis , 1994
• Family † Zhangobiidae Evenhuis , 1994
• Campsicnemus charliechaplini Evenhuis , 1996
• Campsicnemus popeye Evenhuis , 2013
• † Carmenelectra shechisme Evenhuis , 2002
• † Carmenelectra shehuggme Evenhuis , 2013
• Poecilognathus relativitae ( Evenhuis , 1985)

Frisbee record

On May 12, 1980 Evenhuis achieved a world record in Frisbee throw in the Gridiron Mini Field Goal Distance discipline , which lasted for 20 years.

Web links

• Neal L. Evenhuis, Ph.D. , Contributor page on the Hawaii Biological Survey website.
• New Taxa Described by Neal L. Evenhuis: Orders and Families - Genera - Species , website of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Neal L. Evenhuis, Ph.D. , Staff page on the Hawaii Biological Survey website, accessed February 2, 2018.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Evenhuis, Neal Luit , website of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, accessed February 2, 2018.
3. ^ Stupid Science Word of the Month . In: Discover , July 26, 2007, accessed February 2, 2018.
4. ↑ Neal L. Evenhuis: New western North American homoeophthalmine Bombyliidae (Diptera) . In: Polskie Pismo Entomologiczne 1985, Volume 55, pp. 505-512, ISSN  0032-3780 .
5. ↑ Jessica Leber, The latest in newly discovered species: You pay for it, you get to name it , University of Columbia website , March 4, 2008, accessed February 2, 2018.
6. ↑ Neal L. Evenhuis: Review of the Tertiary microbombyliids (Diptera: Mythicomyiidae) in Baltic, Bitterfeld, and Dominican amber . In: Zootaxa 2002, No. 100, pp. 1-15, doi : 10.11646 / zootaxa.100.1 .
7. ↑ Neal L. Evenhuis: New microbombyliids (Diptera: Mythicomyiidae) from Eocene Baltic and Rovno ambers, with notes on previously described amber species . In: Zootaxa 2013, No. 3731, pp. 371-380, doi : 10.11646 / zootaxa.3731.3.6 .
8. ↑ David J. Greathead and Neal L. Evenhuis: Annotated keys to the genera of African Bombylioidea (Diptera: Bombyliidae; Mythicomyiidae) . In: African Invertebrates 2001, Volume 42, No. 1, pp. 105-124, here pp. 127-129, online .
9. ↑ Neal L. Evenhuis: Pieza, a new genus of microbombyliids from the New World (Diptera: Mythicomyiidae) . In: Zootaxa 2002, No. 36, pp. 1–28, doi : 10.11646 / zootaxa.36.1.1 .
10. ↑ Neal L. Evenhuis: The Campsicnemus popeye species group (Diptera: Dolichopodidae) from French Polynesia . In: Zootaxa 2013, No. 3694, No. 3, pp. 271-279, doi : 10.11646 / zootaxa.3694.3.7 .
11. ↑ WFDF Official Rules of Flying Disc Sports , September 7, 1994, accessed February 2, 2018.

predecessor	Office	successor
Alessandro Minelli	President of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 2001–2007	Jan van Tol