Horace Donisthorpe

Horace St. John Kelly Donisthorpe, F.Z.S, F.R.E.S, &c. (March 17, 1870 - April 22, 1951) was an eccentric British myrmecologist and coleopterist, memorable in part for his renaming of the genus Lasius after himself 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, and, being possessed of a private income, from about 1890 he devoted his life to the study of beetles and ants.

Frank Bouskell, who described Donisthorpe as 'his oldest friend', wrote in ERJV, 63, 1951, p.228, upon his death:

"He did his early collecting with me at Bradgate Park, Bardon Hill and Budon Wood where he was first interested in ants and their hosts. About this time I first introduced him to Mr F. Bates, brother of Bates of the Amazons, who later gave him his almost complete collection of Coleoptera. Later on we went to Wicken Fen, the New Forest, Isle of Wight, etc... I should [also] mention our joint trip to South Kerry'. Probably the best known of his collecting grounds was Windsor great park where he had permission to collect extensively and where so many of his important discoveries were made.

Donisthorpe was controversial in part because he was considered overeager in his attempts to identify new species of ants and beetles. In fact, of the 30 new species he identified, 24 were deemed to be insufficiently distinct to be considered separate species. See Leptacinus intermedius, Ilyobates bennetti, Micrambe aubrooki, Gymnetron lloydi, and Xyleborus sampsoni -- all named to honor his colleagues.

Books by Donisthorpe

• The Coleoptera of the Isle of Wight. Published in 1906 by the Leics. Lit. Phil. Soc.. The supplementary sixth volume was compiled with W. W. Fowler to the latter's Coleoptera of the British Isles in 1913;

• British Ants: their life histories and classification. First published in 1915, this book was reviewed and republished in 1927, and was the first major book ever written on British ants. Although the first edition contained all the species known at the time (and one, Leptothorax corticalis which was lated found to be erroneous), the second edition contained the addition of Lasius brunneus, a small, arboreal ants of the Lasius mixtusb group found principally in orchards in the home counties. The 1927 edition was, however, too early for any mention of strongylodus testacious, which Donisthorpe discovered in the New Forest several years later.

• The Guests of British Ants. Published in 1927, the same year as the revision of British Ants: their life histories and classification took place. This book deals with myrmecophiles of British ants, some of them ants themselves (e.g. Formicoxenus and Anergates. It also mentions and debunks theories regarding the effect that the presence of a species of beetle (of the genus Atemeles) has on the number of Zoological Society of London and in his work at the Natural History Museum, London, often wrote of and described new species and species' habits from all around the world in various entomological journals, such as Animals and the Magazine of Natural History.

Donisthorpe also wrote two chapters of Wild Life the World Over : Comprising Twenty-Seven Chapters Written by Nine Distinguished World-Traveled Specialists, which was published in 1953, 2 years after his death.

Locations in Britain visited by Horace Donisthorpe

Donisthorpe visited many locations in the British Isles in which he collected and recorded unusual species of British ants:

• Aviemore, Morayshire
• Chobham common. nr. Chobham, Surrey
• Box Hill, Surrey
• Nethy Bridge, Morayshire
• Parkhurst forest, Isle of Wight
• Rannoch, Perthshire
• The New Forest, including Matley Bog, Hampshire
• Sandown, Isle of Wight
• Weybridge, principally Weybridge heath, Surrey

See also British ants.