Elwood Zimmerman

Elwood Curtin Zimmerman ( born December 8, 1912 in Spokane, Washington, † 18 June 2004 Tura Beach, New South Wales) was an American entomologist. His main field of research was the insect fauna of the Hawaiian Islands, Australia and Fiji and Samoa.

Biography

In 1934 Zimmerman part in an expedition to French Polynesia. After a biology degree he obtained in 1936 at the University of California, Berkeley his Bachelor of Science. Between 1936 and 1937, and 1940-1941, he worked as a lecturer at the University of Hawaii. Between 1936 and 1945 he was an entomologist at the Bernice P. Bishop Museum in Honolulu, for which he undertook in 1938 and 1940, collecting expeditions to the Fiji Islands and Samoa. From 1946 to 1950 he was curator of an entomologist at the Bernice P. Bishop Museum. 1948 published the first five volumes of Insects of Hawaii, which is among the most extensive standard works on the Hawaiian insect fauna. For the work he won the award for best Hawaiian authors of the year.

From 1951 to 1961 he was a research associate at the Bernice P. Bishop Museum. In 1956 he obtained from the University of London Ph. D. Between 1957 and 1958 he published the volumes six to eight of Incects of Hawaii. From 1961 to 1973 he again worked as an entomologist for the Bernice P. Bishop Museum. In 1973, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Entomology at the CSIRO in Australia. In 1980 he obtained from the University of London his Doctor of Science. In 1983 he was awarded the Karl Jordan Medal. Between 1991 and 1994, his six -volume work Australian Weevils, in which he first described several Australian beetle species that until now were unknown to science appeared.

Zimmerman wrote more than 200 scientific articles, including the first descriptions of genera such as Apagobelus, Dryotribodes, Arhinobelus and Carodes.

Ehrentaxa

After Zimmerman species such Aeletes zimmermani, Zorotypus zimmermani, Apsilochorema zimmermani and Cerapachys zimmermani are named.