Frank M. Carpenter

Frank M. Carpenter
Born September 6, 1902[1]
Boston[1]
Died January 18, 1994 (aged 91)[1]
Lexington, Massachusetts[1]
Alma mater Harvard University[1]
Thesis The fossil ants of North America (1929)
Doctoral advisor William Morton Wheeler[1]
Notable awards Paleontological Society Medal (1975)

Frank Morton Carpenter (1902-1994) received his PhD from Harvard University, and was curator of fossil insects at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology for 60 years. He studied the Permian fossil insects of Elmo, Kansas, and compared the North American fossil insect fauna with Paleozoic taxa known from elsewhere in the world. A careful and methodical worker, he used venation and mouthparts to determine the relationships of fossil taxa, and was author of the Treatise volume on Insects. He reduced the number of extinct insect orders then described from about fifty to nine.

Entomologists David Grimaldi and Michael S. Engel consider him "the most influential paleoentomologist of his generation" (Grimaldi and Engel 2005 p. 143). He has been memorialized frequently with patronyms, including the scorpionfly Bittacus carpenteri Cheng, 1957,[2] the fossil parasitic wasp Carpenteriana tumida Yoshimoto, 1975,[3] the fossil snakefly Fibla carpenteri Engel, 1995,[4] the fossil ant Protrechina carpenteri Wilson, 1985,[5] and the caddisfly Rhyacophila carpenteri Milne, 1936.[6]

Cited Works

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Furth, D. G. (1994). "Frank Morton Carpenter (1902–1994): Academic Biography and List of Publications". Psyche: A Journal of Entomology 101: 127. doi:10.1155/1994/46462.
  2. ↑ F. Y. Cheng. 1957. Revision of the Chinese Mecoptera. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology 116(1): 1-118; 113: "I take the liberty to name the species in honor of Professor F. M. Carpenter, who has allowed me to describe the species."
  3. ↑ Carl M. Yoshimoto. 1975. Cretaceous Chalcidoid Fossils from Canadian Amber. Canadian Entomologist 107(5): 499-528; 510: "Named after the American palaeoentomologist Frank Carpenter (1902-1994), who worked at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Massachusetts" per: John T. Huber. 2005. The gender and derivation of genus-group names in Mymaridae and Mymarommatidae (Hymenoptera). Acta Soc. Zool. Bohem. 69: 167-183; p. 169.
  4. ↑ M. S. Engel. 1995. A new fossil snake-fly species from Baltic amber (Raphidioptera: Inocelliidae). Psyche 102: 187-193. "This species is named in honor of the late Dr. Frank M. Carpenter (1902-1994), world's authority on fossil insects. Dr. Carpenter had a particular interest in the Raphidioptera (both recent and fossil) and it is only fitting that one should bear his name."
  5. ↑ Edward O. Wilson. 1985. Ants from the Cretaceous and Eocene amber of North America. Psyche 92: 205-216. "The species is named for Frank M. Carpenter in recognition of his pioneering work on the fossil ants of North America."
  6. ↑ L. J. Milne. 1936. Studies in North American Trichoptera. Part 3. Cambridge, Mass.: privately published. 128 pages.

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