Herbert Spencer Barber (18821950) 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 ...

.Herbert Spencer Barber
at the SIA archives. Herbert was born on April 12, 1882, in

Yankton, South Dakota Yankton is a city in and the county seat of Yankton County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 15,411 at the 2020 census, and it is the principal city of the Yankton Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes the entirety of Y ...

, to Amherst Willoughby and Velma Barber. His father, a civil engineer, was greatly interested in natural sciences. He grew up attending public schools in

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...

, and then attended high school for two years in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

Beyond this he received very little formal education, although he did take some night classes. As a child he had become interested in insects, and in 1898 he worked with Dr. E. A. Schwartz as assistant preparator of insects in the National Museum in Washington. He held his position until 1902 and came back again from 1904 to 1908. During the years 1902 to 1904 he studied cotton insects in southern fields under the

Bureau of Entomology The Bureau of Entomology was a unit within the Federal government of the United States from 1894 to 1934. It developed from a section of the Department of Agriculture which had been working on entomological researches and allied issues relating to ...

in the

U.S. Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...

. Starting in 1908 on he worked as a specialist on beetles in the Division of Insect Identification of the Bureau of Entomology and Plant Quarantine of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Until Dr. Schwartz died in 1928, Barber continued to work closely with him at the National Museum. In 1913, Barber published two papers about ''

Micromalthus debilis The telephone-pole beetle (''Micromalthus debilis'') is a beetle native to the eastern United States, and the only living representative of the otherwise extinct family Micromalthidae. They have an unusual lifecycle involving asexually reproducin ...

'', a small wood-boring beetle. He had discovered that there are several distinct types of larvae in this species and that under certain conditions larvae will produce both eggs and live larvae. This has since been confirmed by other scientists, but initially it was doubted by many entomologists. This was potentially his greatest single discovery, which occurred only fifteen years after he had his first exposure to entomological work. Barber was a naturalist with wide interests. He was an internationally recognized authority on

chrysomelid The insects of the beetle family Chrysomelidae are commonly known as leaf beetles, and include over 37,000 (and probably at least 50,000) species in more than 2,500 genera, making up one of the largest and most commonly encountered of all beetle ...

, bruchid, and lampyrid beetles and often was consulted for his knowledge of

Coleoptera Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

as well as many other subjects. He traveled to collect insects to many parts of the United States,

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, and

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

. Barber belonged to the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

, the

Entomological Society of Washington The Entomological Society of Washington was organized on February 29, 1884 at a meeting called by three entomologists employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture: Charles Valentine Riley, Eugene Amandus Schwarz, and Leland Ossian Howard, in Ril ...

, the Coleopterists’s Society, the

Entomological Society of America The Entomological Society of America (ESA) was founded in 1889 and today has more than 7,000 members, including educators, extension personnel, consultants, students, researchers, and scientists from agricultural departments, health agencies, ...

, the

American Association of Economic Entomologists The Entomological Society of America (ESA) was founded in 1889 and today has more than 7,000 members, including educators, extension personnel, consultants, students, researchers, and scientists from agricultural departments, health agencies, ...

, the

Biological Society of Washington The Biological Society of Washington is a worldwide acting scientific organisation established on 3 December 1880 in Washington, D.C., United States. The original purpose was "to encourage the study of the Biological Sciences and to hold meetings a ...

, the Washington Academy of Sciences, and the

Potomac Appalachian Trail Club The Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) is a volunteer organization that works to maintain hiking trails in the Washington, D.C. area of the United States. PATC was founded in 1927 to protect and develop the local section of the then new Appala ...

. As a member of the Washington Biologists’ Field Club, Barber spent a lot of time on

Plummers Island Plummers Island is a 12-acre Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution f ...

studying the beetles there with Dr. Schwartz. Barber died on June 1, 1950.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barber, Herbert Spencer 1882 births 1950 deaths American entomologists People from Yankton, South Dakota Coleopterists 20th-century American zoologists