Horace Donisthorpe

Horace St. John Kelly Donisthorpe (March 17, 1870–April 22, 1951) was an eccentric British myrmecologist and coleopterist, memorable in part for his enthusiastic championing of the renaming of the genus Lasius after him as Donisthorpea, and for his many claims of discovering new species of beetles and ants.

Biography

Educated at Mill Hill House, Leicester and Oakham Grammar School, Donisthorpe went to Heidelberg University to read medicine. However, his "too sensitive nature" forced him to give up this career. Being possessed of a private income, from about 1890 he devoted his life to the study of beetles and ants.

Related Topics:
Leicester - Heidelberg University - Medicine - 1890

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Probably the best known of his collecting grounds were the ancient forests of Windsor Great Park in Berkshire where he had permission to collect extensively and where so many of his important discoveries were made.

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Donisthorpe was controversial in part because he was often considered overeager in his attempts to identify new species of ants and beetles. In fact, of the 30 new species he identified, 24 were subsequently deemed to be insufficiently distinct to be considered separate species or to be synonymous with previous valid species. It is, however, accepted that he did indeed identify the following new species:

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:*Cercyon aguatilis,

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:*Leptacinus intermedius,

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:*Ilyobates bennetti,

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:*Micrambe aubrooki,

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:*Gymnetron lloydi,

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:*and Xyleborus sampsoni,

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all named to honour his colleagues.

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Species which Donisthorpe described anew that turned out to have been previously classified include (from New Species of Ants (Hym., Formicidae) from the Gold Coast, Borneo, Celebes, New Guinea and New Hebrides):

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:* Aenictus bidentatus,

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:* Rhytidoponera gagates,

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:* Diacamma rugosum,

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:* Leptogenys walkeri (Donisthorpe noted: "I have much pleasure in naming this ant in honour of my dear friend the late Commander J. J. Walker, RN"),

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:* Leptogenys violacea,

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:* Polyrhachis bryanti,

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:* and Polyrhachis hosei.

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Polyrhachis hosei provides an interesting demonstration of Donisthorpe's zeal for new species coming into conflict with existing ones. His description starts: "The general description of P.(M.) byyani would do equally well for this species..." and then goes on to describe a small number of very minor differences: "a larger and more robust insect", "pronotal spines longer", "the scale has a somewhat wider arch", and so on.

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Donisthorpe was a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London and a Fellow and Vice-Chairman of the Royal Entomological Society.

Related Topics:
Zoological Society of London - Royal Entomological Society

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