Asa Fitch

Asa Fitch ( born February 24, 1809 in Salem, New York, † April 8, 1879 ) was an American naturalist and entomologist historian.

Career

Asa Fitch was born about three years before the outbreak of the British - American War in Salem and grew up there. He studied both natural history and medicine at the newly founded Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he graduated in 1827. In 1838 he decided to study agriculture and entomology. In the same year he began to collect insects in New York and study. In 1854, he became the first expert entomologist of New York State Agricultural Society in New York State and in the same time. Throughout the United States

His extensive studies of many insects helped scientists some of the issues relating to resolve crop damage by insects. Many of his notebooks are now owned by the Smithsonian Institution. Fitch discovered in 1856 the rodent warble fly Cuterebra emasculator. He died on 8 April 1879 in Salem.

Works (selection)

• First and second report on the noxious, beneficial and other insects, of the state of New York. Albany 1856 ( biodiversity heritage library)