Allan Frost Archer (January 22, 1908 – 1994, fl. 1940–1971), U.S. arachnologist, entomologist and malacologist. He was the curator of Arachnida at the Alabama Museum of Natural History, University, Alabama. Archer was active in the latter half of the twentieth century, especially between 1940 and 1971, when he described numerous species of arachnids and

snail A snail is, in loose terms, a shelled gastropod. The name is most often applied to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs. However, the common name ''snail'' is also used for most of the members of the molluscan class Gastro ...

s in a number of states in the United States and elsewhere. The

World Spider Catalog The World Spider Catalog (WSC) is an online searchable database concerned with spider taxonomy. It aims to list all accepted families, genera and species, as well as provide access to the related taxonomic literature. The WSC began as a series of ...

lists 29

genera Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...

spider Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species ...

s named by Archer, of which 16 are still accepted . Allen Frost Archer was the author of about 26 scientific papers and was responsible for describing a number of terrestrial snail taxa in his malacological career which spanned over 30 years. His specimen collection of 1600 lots of terrestrial snails seems to have passed to Dr. John C. Hurd ( LaGrange College, Georgia) and subsequently to the

Auburn University Auburn University (AU or Auburn) is a public land-grant research university in Auburn, Alabama. With more than 24,600 undergraduate students and a total enrollment of more than 30,000 with 1,330 faculty members, Auburn is the second largest uni ...

Natural History Learning Center and Museum (AUNHLCM) in 2002. Many of the specimens in the collection are too old to have been collected by Dr. Archer and so were presumably obtained by trading with museums. Dr. Archer's collecting activities were mainly in southeastern North America but during the later years of his life he made collections from throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, and many Pacific and Caribbean Islands. He was married to Mableanne Hanson on 31 July 1942. His son Allan Frost Archer, Jr. was born in Decatur, Alabama on 23 December 1943 and was ordained into the Orthodox church as a priest in 1996 and took the name Aaron.

Publications

The following is an incomplete list. * Archer, Allan F. (1940). "The Argiopidae or orb-weaving spiders of Alabama". ''Museum Papers of the Alabama Museum of Natural History'' * Archer, Allan F. & Clench, William J. (1930). "New Land Snails from Tanganyika Territory". ''Occasional Papers of the Boston Society of Natural History'', vol. 5, pp 295–300, 1 plate. * Archer, A. F. (1941). "Alabama spiders of the family Mimetidae". ''Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts and Letters'' 27: 183-193. * Archer, A. F. (1941). "Supplement to the Argiopidae of Alabama". ''Museum Paper, Geological Survey of Alabama'' 18: 1-47. * Archer, Allan F. (1946). "The Theridiidae or Comb-footed Spiders of Alabama". ''Museum Papers of the Alabama Museum of Natural History'', 22: p. 31 * Archer, A. F. (1950). "A study of theridiid and mimetid spiders with descriptions of new genera and species". ''Museum Paper, Alabama Museum of Natural History'' 30: 1-40. * Archer, A. F. (1951). "Studies in the orbweaving spiders (Argiopidae). 1". ''American Museum Novitates'' 1487: 1-52. * Archer, A. F. (1951). "Studies in the orbweaving spiders (Argiopidae). 2". ''American Museum Novitates'' 1502: 1-34. * Archer, A. F. (1951). "Remarks on certain European genera of argiopid spiders". ''Chicago Academy of Sciences, Natural History Miscellanea'' 84: 1-4. * Archer, A. F. (1951). "A new species of ''Gasteracantha'' (Argiopidae) from São Tomé Island, West Africa". ''Chicago Academy of Sciences, Natural History Miscellanea'' 90: 1-3. * Archer, A. F. (1953). "Studies in the orbweaving spiders (Argiopidae). 3". ''American Museum Novitates'' 1622: 1-27. * Archer, A. F. (1958). "Studies in the orbweaving spiders (Argiopidae). 4". ''American Museum Novitates'' 1922: 1-21. * Archer, A. F. (1960). "A new genus of Argiopidae from Japan". ''Acta Arachnologica'', Tokyo 17: 13-14. * Archer, A. F. (1963). "Catalogo de las arañas chilenas de las families de la division Metarachnae". ''Publicaciones Ocasionales del Museo Nacional de Historia Natural'', Santiago 1: 1-32. * Archer, A. F. (1965). "A new species of ''Cyphalonotus'' from Central Africa". ''Revue de Zoologie et de Botanique Africaines'' 72: 79-82. * Archer, A. F. (1965). "Nuevos argiopidos (arañas) de las Antilles". ''Caribbean Journal of Science'' 5: 129-133. * Archer, A. F. (1971). "Especies nuevas de argiopidos peruanos". ''Revista Peruana de Entomología Agricola'' 14: 157-159. * Bryant, E. B. & Archer, A. F. (1940). "Notes on ''Epeira pentagona'' Hentz." ''Psyche, Cambridge'' 47: 60-65. * Gertsch, W. J. & Archer, A. F. (1942). "Descriptions of new American Theridiidae". ''American Museum Novitates'' 1171: 1-16. * Yaginuma, T. & Archer, A. F. (1959). "Genera of the araneine Argiopidae found in the Oriental region, and generally placed under the comprehensive genus, ''Araneus''. 1." ''Acta Arachnologica'', Tokyo 16: 34-41.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Archer, Allan Frost 1994 deaths Arachnologists American entomologists American arachnologists American malacologists 1908 births 20th-century American zoologists