Edward Payson Van Duzee

Edward Payson Van Duzee (1861 - 1940) was an American entomologist noted for his work on Hemiptera. As of 1885, he was a librarian at Grosvenor Library of Buffalo New York for 28 years, and then relocated to California in 1912 where he took a position at Scripps Institute in La Jolla. He was an instructor of entomology at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1914–16, after which he was appointed curator of the entomology collection at the California Academy of Sciences from 1916 to 1940. At the time of his death, he had approximately 165 publications (Science, 1940) in addition to his noted Catalogue of the Hemiptera where he established 46 new genera and 906 species or subspecies.
The following is drawn from a brief unpublished autobiographical sketch written by van Duzee in January, 1940: His father was Dr. William Sanford Van Duzee, natural historian and amateur astronomer (a Fitz refractory telescope intended for the University of Virginia came into his possession in 1861 due to a failed sale because of war conditions). Shortly after Edward Payson's birth, the family left New York and returned to Buffalo (corner of Main and Riley Streets) where the family home housed a small natural history museum and the Fitz telescope housed in a specially-built three-story structure that was opened for public viewing. Meetings of like-minded took place in the home and the Buffalo Society for Natural History was thus born. His brother, Millard Carr Van Duzee, published in entomology as well.

References and external links

• North Dakota State University Biographical and Type Information--accessed 18 December 2007
• California Academy of Sciences--accessed 18 December 2007
• International Heteropterists Society Past Workers (includes photo)--accessed 18 December 2007
• Wikipedia on Henry Fitz--accessed 25 June 2009