Willis John Gertsch

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Willis John Gertsch (born October 4, 1906 in Montpelier , Idaho ; died December 12, 1998 in Tucson , Arizona ) was an American arachnologist . He described almost 1,000 species, mainly weaving spiders , including such well-known species as the Brown Recluse Spider ( Loxosceles reclusa ). In particular, he has described numerous Loxosceles species ( Sicariidae ) and dedicated himself to the wolf spiders (Lycosidae). His research on a large number of spider families had a great influence on the systematics of the web spiders. Among his publications, the book American Spiders , published in 1949 and reissued in 1979, was also successful outside of the professional world.

Life

Childhood and youth

Willis John Gertsch grew up as the child of a Swiss couple with younger siblings, two brothers and a sister, in Montpelier. He attended public schools and contributed to the family income as a milk boy and with work in the local cinema. As a teenager he took an interest in natural history and collected butterflies. When Willis enrolled at the University of Utah in 1924 , the whole family moved to Salt Lake City so that his studies would have less of an impact on the family. During the semester break, Gertsch worked for a railway repair team.

academic education

When Gertsch started his sophomore year, the zoologist Ralph Vary Chamberlin came back to the University of Utah from the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University . Chamberlin was one of only eight arachnologists in the United States at the time. Without completely giving up his interest in butterflies, Gertsch made arachnids his main research focus under the guidance of Chamberlin .

Willis J. Gertsch received his bachelor's degree from the University of Utah in 1928 and his master's degree in 1930. He then moved to the University of Minnesota Duluth for his doctoral studies , where he received his doctorate in 1935 with a thesis on the biology and taxonomy of a subfamily of crab spiders . In Duluth, Gertsch met the head of the entomological department of the American Museum of Natural History , Frank E. Lutz , who was urgently looking for a colleague to build an arachnological collection.

American Museum of Natural History

Gertsch began working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in the early autumn of 1932 while he was still a doctoral student . The University of Minnesota Duluth had allowed him to do his doctoral thesis in absentia. As expected, Gertsch built up the museum's arachnological collection and became its curator for 36 years. In addition to the necessary taxonomic work, Gertsch managed to secure important collections from other institutions for his museum. These included the collection built up by Sherman C. Bishop , and that of Ralph Vary Chamberlin at the University of Utah, which Gertsch continued to work on until his retirement. In addition, Gertsch was able to win important permanent loans from Cornell University and the Smithsonian Institution .

Researches

Willis J. Gertsch attached great importance to biological fieldwork throughout his entire scientific career and carried out numerous research trips and expeditions. He regarded the publication of his findings as an obligation and published well into old age. In the course of his career, Gertsch described almost 1,000 species and carried out numerous revisions of families and genera of arachnids. In addition to weaving spiders , he also worked on scourge scorpions , scorpions and hooded spiders . For more than half a century he was the leading American arachnologist. After his retirement, he continued to research and publish, particularly on cave spiders, and was co-editor of the Journal of Arachnology . Gertsch was a board member of the American Arachnological Society .

Private life

Willis J. Gertsch married his fellow student Jean Elizabeth Moore while he was still studying in Duluth in August 1932, and she was aiming for her master's degree. They had three children and six grandchildren. In 1968 Gertsch retired from the American Museum of Natural History and moved with his wife to Portal , Arizona , at the foot of the Chiricahua Mountains . Only four miles away is a research station of the museum, which Gertsch had repeatedly visited in the 1950s and which he had provisionally directed for one summer in 1962. Jean Moore Gertsch died in 1993, Willis J. Gertsch lived in a nursing home in Tucson, Arizona from 1995 until his death on December 12, 1998.

Trivia

The American writer EB White asked Gertsch before the publication of his children's book Wilbur and Charlotte (English title: Charlotte's Web ) about a spider he had observed. Gertsch the spider identified as Araneus cavaticus , a native in North America spider . The full name of the spider Charlotte in White's book was Charlotte A. Cavatica .

Dedication names (selection)

For decades, species and higher taxa were named after Willis J. Gertsch . Most of them were spiders, but also harvestmen, scorpions and insects. Particularly noteworthy are:

  • Cicurina gertschi Exline, 1936 (Araneae, Dictynidae): an early tribute to Gertsch, who was only 30 years old.
  • Tricholepidion gertschi Wygodzinsky, 1961: a small fish from the monotypic family Lepidotrichidae (Insecta, Zygentoma) is possibly the only recent representative of a separate order of insects. The type specimens were collected in August 1959 by Willis J. Gertsch and Vincent D. Roth in Northern California.
  • Gertschiola Bertoli, 1981 (Araneae, Pholcidae): In the course of a revision, the genus of the quiver spiders was newly established.
  • Gertschosa Platnick & Shadab, 1981 (Araneae, Gnaphosidae): In the course of a revision, the genus of the smooth- bellied spider was newly established.
  • Willisus Roth, 1981 with the only species Willisus gertschi Roth 1981: both the generic name and the specific epithet of this funnel spider (Araneae, Agelenidae) honor Willis J. Gertsch.
  • Gertschanapis Platnick & Forster, 1990 (Araneae, Anapidae): a monotypical genus of dwarf ball spiders .
  • Gertschius Graham & Soleglad, 2007 (Scorpiones, Vaejovidae): genus Vaejovidae formed from a newly described species and several species from another genus.

Publications (selection)

  • 1933: New genera and species of North American spiders. In: American Museum Novitates 636 , pp. 1-28. PDF
  • 1933: Diagnoses of new American spiders. In: American Museum Novitates 637 , pp. 1-14. PDF
  • 1934: Notes on American Lycosidae . In: American Museum Novitates 693 , pp. 1-25. PDF
  • 1934: Further notes on American spiders. In: American Museum Novitates 726 , pp. 1-26. PDF
  • 1935: The Biology and Taxonomy of Nearctic Crab-Spiders (Misumeninae). In: Ph.D. thesis, University of Minnesota, St. Paul 1935, OCLC 761368711
  • 1935: Spiders from the southwestern United States , with descriptions of new species. In: American Museum Novitates 792 , pp. 1–31. PDF
  • 1935: Willis J. Gertsch and HK Wallace: Further notes on American Lycosidae. In: American Museum Novitates 794 , pp. 1–22. PDF
  • 1936: Willis J. Gertsch and Stanley Mulaik : Diagnoses of new Southern spiders. In: American Museum Novitates 851 , pp. 1-21. PDF
  • 1936: Willis J. Gertsch and Wilton Ivie : Descriptions of new American spiders. In: American Museum Novitates 858 , pp. 1-25. PDF
  • 1939: Willis J. Gertsch and William L. Jellison : Notes on a collection of spiders from Montana . In: American Museum Novitates 1032 , pp. 1-13. PDF
  • 1939: A revision of the typical crab-spiders (Misumeninae) of America north of Mexico . In: Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 76 (7): 277-442. PDF
  • 1939: Report on a collection of Arachnida from the Chisos Mountains. In: Contributions from Baylor University Museum 24 , pp. 17-26, OCLC 5393624 .
  • 1941: New American spiders of the family Clubionidae . I. In: American Museum Novitates 1147 , pp. 1-20. PDF
  • 1949: American Spiders. D. Van Nostrand, New York, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Damericanspiders00gertrich~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D~doppelseiten%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D .
  • 1955: The spider genus Neon in North America. In: American Museum Novitates 1743 , pp. 1-17. PDF
  • 1958: The spider family Plectreuridae . In: American Museum Novitates 1920 , pp. 1-53. PDF
  • 1958: Results of the Puritan-American Museum Expedition to Western Mexico. 4. The Scorpions . In: American Museum Novitates 1903 , pp. 1-20. PDF
  • 1960: Descriptions of American spiders of the family Symphytognathidae . In: American Museum Novitates 1981 , pp. 1-40. PDF
  • 1960: The fulva group of the spider genus Steatoda (Araneae, Theridiidae ). In: American Museum Novitates 1982 , pp. 1-48. PDF
  • 1961: The spider genus Lutica. In: Senckenbergiana Biologia 42 (4), pp. 365-374, ZDB -ID 206929-5 .
  • 1964: The spider genus Zygiella in North America (Araneae, Argiopidae ). In: American Museum Novitates 2188 , pp. 1-21. PDF
  • 1965: Willis J. Gertsch and Dorald M. Allred: Scorpions of the Nevada Test Site. In: Brigham Young University Science Bulletin 6 (4), pp. 1-16, digitized versionhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dbrighamyounguniv06brig~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D~doppelseiten%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D (full volume).
  • 1966: Willis J. Gertsch and Michael E. Soleglad: The scorpions of the Vejovis boreus group (subgenus Paruroctonus) in North America (Scorpionida, Vejovidae). In: American Museum Novitates 2278 , pp. 1-54. PDF .
  • 1971: Scorpion. In: Encyclopedia Americana , Volume 24, pp. 426-427.
  • 1972: Willis J. Gertsch and Michael E. Soleglad: Studies of North American scorpions of the genera Uroctonus and Vejovis (Scorpionida, Vejovidae). In: Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 148 (4), pp. 551-607. PDF .
  • 1973: A report on cave spiders from Mexico and Central America . In: Robert W. Mitchell and James R. Reddell (Eds.): Studies on the cavernicole fauna of Mexico and adjacent regions. Association for Mexican Cave Studies Bulletin 5 , pp. 141–163, Online PDF , full volume (24 MB).
  • 1974: Scorpionida . In: Encyclopedia Britannica , 15th edition, Volume 16, pp. 401-403.
  • 1976: Willis J. Gertsch and Susan E. Riechert : The spatial and temporal partitioning of a desert spider community, with descriptions of new species. In: American Museum Novitates 2604 , pp. 1-25. PDF .
  • 1979: Willis J. Gertsch and Norman I. Platnick : A revision of the spider family Mecicobothriidae (Araneae, Mygalomorphae ). In: American Museum Novitates 2687 , pp. 1-32. PDF .
  • 1979: American Spiders. 2nd Edition. Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York, 274 pp., ISBN 978-1176184008 .
  • 1982: The spider genera Pholcophora and Anopsicus (Araneae, Pholcidae ) in North America, Central America, and the West Indies. In: James R. Reddell (Ed.): Further studies on the cavernicole fauna of Mexico and adjacent regions, pp. 95-144. Association for Mexican Cave Studies Bulletin 8 (also Bulletin Texas Memorial Museum 28 ), online PDF , full volume (23 MB).
  • 1984: The spider family Nesticidae (Araneae) in North America, Central America, and the West Indies. In: Bulletin of the Texas Memorial Museum 31 : i-viii, pp. 1-91, online .
  • 1989: Willis J. Gertsch and Gary A. Polis : Major Arachnid orders. Scorpions. Classification. In: New Encyclopaedia Britannica , 13, p. 920.

literature

  • Benjamin J. Kaston : Willis J. Gertsch: a Biography and Bibliography. In: American Museum of Natural History (Ed.): Contributions to Arachnid Systematics in Honor of Willis J. Gertsch on the occasion of his Seventy-Fifth Birthday. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 1981, Volume 170, No. 1, pp. 7-14, online .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Benjamin J. Kaston: Willis J. Gertsch: a Biography and Bibliography, p. 7
  2. ^ University of Minnesota (Ed.): University of Minnesota. Commencement Convocation, Winter Quarter 1935. Northrop Memorial Auditorium. Thursday, March 21, 1935, Eleven O'Clock (program booklet). University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth 1935, p. 42
  3. ^ A b Benjamin J. Kaston: Willis J. Gertsch: a Biography and Bibliography, p. 10
  4. ^ A b Benjamin J. Kaston: Willis J. Gertsch: a Biography and Bibliography, p. 8
  5. ^ A b Benjamin J. Kaston: Willis J. Gertsch: a Biography and Bibliography, p. 9
  6. ^ A b Benjamin J. Kaston: Willis J. Gertsch: a Biography and Bibliography, p. 11
  7. ^ Arizona Obituary and Death Notice Archive , entry for Willis Gertsch, accessed August 21, 2017.
  8. ↑ Abraham Pper: EB White explains why he wrote “Charlotte's Web” , accessed on August 21, 2017.
  9. ↑ Harriet Idola Exline : Nearctic spiders of the genus Cicurina quantity. In: American Museum Novitates 1936, No. 850, pp. 1-25.
  10. ↑ Pedro Wygodzinsky : On a surviving Representative of the Lepidotrichidae (Thysanura). In: Annals of the Entomological Society of America 1961, Vol. 54, No. 5, pp. 621-627, doi : 10.1093 / aesa / 54.5.621
  11. ^ Paolo Marcello Brignoli : Studies on the Pholcidae, I. Notes on the Genera Artema and Physocyclus (Araneae). In: American Museum of Natural History (Ed.): Contributions to Arachnid Systematics in Honor of Willis J. Gertsch on the occasion of his Seventy-Fifth Birthday. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 1981, Volume 170, No. 1, pp. 90-100, online .
  12. ↑ Norman I. Platnick and Mohammad U. Shadab : A New Genus of the Spider Family Gnaphosidae (Arachnida, Araneae). In: American Museum of Natural History (Ed.): Contributions to Arachnid Systematics in Honor of Willis J. Gertsch on the occasion of his Seventy-Fifth Birthday. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 1981, Volume 170, No. 1, pp. 176-182, online .
  13. ↑ Vincent D. Roth : A new genus of spider (Agelenidae) from California exhibiting a third type of leg autospasy. In: American Museum of Natural History (Ed.): Contributions to Arachnid Systematics in Honor of Willis J. Gertsch on the occasion of his Seventy-Fifth Birthday. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 1981, Volume 170, No. 1, pp. 101-105, online
  14. ^ Norman I. Platnick and Raymond R. Forster : On the Spider Family Anapidae (Araneae, Araneoidea) in the United States. In: Journal of the New York Entomological Society 1990, Volume 98, No. 1, pp. 108-112, JSTOR 25009820 .
  15. ^ Matthew R. Graham and Michael E. Soleglad : A New Scorpion Genus Representing a Primitive Taxon of Tribe Stahnkeini, with a Description of a New Species from Sonora, Mexico (Scorpiones: Vaejovidae). In: Euscorpius 2007, No. 57, pp. 1–13, online PDF .
personal data
SURNAME Gertsch, Willis John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American arachnologist
DATE OF BIRTH 4th October 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Montpelier , Idaho
DATE OF DEATH December 12, 1998
Place of death Tucson , Arizona