home   about   search

biodiversity explorer

the web of life in southern Africa

Biodiversity Explorers >

Arnold, George (1881-1962)  

Entomologist, specialising in taxonomy of aculeate Hymenoptera (particularly ants, sphecid wasps and pompilid wasps). Worked for many years at the museum in Bulawayo in what was then Rhodesia.

Chronology

Date  Age Events
1881 0 Born in Hong Kong.
1911 30 Appointed Curator in the National Museum of Southern Rhodesia, Bulawayo.
1915-1926 34-45 Published "A Monograph of the Formicidae of South Africa".
1962 81 Died.

"George Arnold, O.B.E, D.Sc., A.R.C.S., F.R.S.S.A., elected to Honorary Fellowship in 1949, was born in Hong Kong in 1881. He was educated partly in Germany and France and was a good linguist. From the Royal College of Science he was appointed to the Department of Cytology and Cancer Research at Liverpool and worked on Hymenoptera as a hobby. In 1911 he became Curator, and later Director, of the National Museum of Southern Rhodesia, Bulawayo. There he specialised in Aculeate Hymenoptera and published a long and valuable series of taxonomic papers, the last of which was only in proof at the time of his death." (Varley, 1963).

Specimens collected

Collected mainly Hymenoptera. These specimens were originally housed in the museum in Bulawayo but, in exchange for the Zimbabwe birds, most of the Bulawayo Museum's Hymenoptera collection was sent to the South African Museum in 1981.

References

  • Pinhey, E.C.G. 1977. Rhodesia Science News 11(8): 205.

  • Varley, G.C. 1963. The President's remarks. Proceedings Royal Entomological Society of London (C) 27: 50.

Text by Hamish G. Robertson