Charles Lee Remington (January 19, 1922 – May 31, 2007) was an American

entomologist Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...

known for studies of

butterflies Butterflies are insects in the macrolepidopteran clade Rhopalocera from the Order (biology), order Lepidoptera, which also includes moths. Adult butterflies have large, often brightly coloured wings, and conspicuous, fluttering flight. The ...

and

moths Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...

, a

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

professor, and is considered the father of modern

lepidoptery Lepidopterology ()) is a branch of entomology concerning the scientific study of moths and the three superfamilies of butterfly, butterflies. Someone who studies in this field is a lepidopterist or, archaically, an aurelian. Origins Post-Renai ...

. He established a

Periodical Cicada The term periodical cicada is commonly used to refer to any of the seven species of the genus ''Magicicada'' of eastern North America, the 13- and 17-year cicadas. They are called periodical because nearly all individuals in a local population a ...

preserve in

Hamden, Connecticut Hamden is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The town's nickname is "The Land of the Sleeping Giant". The population was 61,169 at the 2020 census. History The peaceful tribe of Quinnipiacs were the first residents of the ...

. He developed the insect collection at the

Peabody Museum of Natural History The Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University is among the oldest, largest, and most prolific university natural history museums in the world. It was founded by the philanthropist George Peabody in 1866 at the behest of his nephew Oth ...

. Among species named in his honor are '' Agathymus remingtoni'' (the Coahuila giant skipper) and '' Metajapyx remingtoni'', a forcepstail.

Biography

Remington was born to Pardon Sheldon and Maud Remington in

Reedville, Virginia Reedville is an unincorporated town in Northumberland County in the Northern Neck region of the U.S. state of Virginia. It is located at the eastern terminus of U.S. Route 360 (the Northumberland Highway) east of Heathsville, at the head of Cockr ...

, on January 19, 1922. His family then moved to

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

. He grew up collecting butterflies with his father. He did his undergraduate studies at

Principia College Principia College (Principia or Prin) is a private liberal arts college in Elsah, Illinois. It was founded in 1912 by Mary Kimball Morgan with the purpose of "serving the Cause of Christian Science." "Although the College is not affiliated wit ...

, where he received a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

in 1943. During his military service in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, he served as a medical entomologist, throughout the Pacific, researching insect-borne diseases and

centipede Centipedes (from New Latin , "hundred", and Latin , " foot") are predatory arthropods belonging to the class Chilopoda (Ancient Greek , ''kheilos'', lip, and New Latin suffix , "foot", describing the forcipules) of the subphylum Myriapoda, an ...

bites in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. After the war, Remington studied for his doctorate at Harvard. He founded the Lepidopterists' Society with

Harry Clench Harry may refer to: TV shows *Harry (American TV series), ''Harry'' (American TV series), a 1987 American comedy series starring Alan Arkin *Harry (British TV series), ''Harry'' (British TV series), a 1993 BBC drama that ran for two seasons *Harry ...

and his first wife Jeanne Remington, mother of his three children. Remington also started a friendship with

Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (russian: link=no, Владимир Владимирович Набоков ; 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (), was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Bo ...

who was a keen amateur butterfly collector. He started teaching at

in 1948. For the academic year 1958–59, Remington was a Guggenheim fellow at Oxford University. In the 1960s he proposed that there were geographic regions which he called

suture zone In structural geology, a suture is a joining together along a major fault zone, of separate terranes, tectonic units that have different plate tectonic, metamorphic and paleogeographic histories. The suture is often represented on the surface by ...

s where species tended to hybridize with close relatives. With Richard Bowers and

Paul R. Ehrlich Paul Ralph Ehrlich (born May 29, 1932) is an American biologist known for his warnings about the consequences of population growth and limited resources. He is the Bing Professor Emeritus of Population Studies of the Department of Biology of St ...

he founded

Zero Population Growth Zero population growth, sometimes abbreviated ZPG, is a condition of demographic balance where the number of people in a specified population neither grows nor declines; that is, the number of births plus in-migrants equals the number of death ...

. He served on the

board of advisors An advisory board is a body that provides non-binding strategic advice to the management of a corporation, organization, or foundation. The informal nature of an advisory board gives greater flexibility in structure and management compared to th ...

of the

Carrying Capacity Network Carry or carrying may refer to: People *Carry (name) Finance * Carried interest (or carry), the share of profits in an investment fund paid to the fund manager * Carry (investment), a financial term: the carry of an asset is the gain or cost of h ...

, an organization that supports

immigration reduction Opposition to immigration, also known as anti-immigration, has become a significant political ideology in many countries. In the modern sense, immigration refers to the entry of people from one state or territory into another state or territory ...

. He died on May 31, 2007, at age 85, in

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Remington, Charles 1922 births 2007 deaths Harvard University alumni Principia College alumni Yale University faculty American lepidopterists Sustainability advocates People from Reedville, Virginia Scientists from Virginia 20th-century American zoologists