John Blackwall (20 January 1790 – 11 May 1881) was an English naturalist with a particular interest in

spider Spiders (order (biology), order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight limbs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude spider silk, silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and ran ...

Life

Blackwall was born in Manchester on 20 January 1790. He lived at Hendre House near

Llanrwst ; ) is a market town and Community (Wales), community in Conwy County Borough, Wales. It is on the east bank of the River Conwy and the A470 road, and lies within the historic counties of Wales, historic county boundaries of Denbighshire (histori ...

in north

Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...

from 1833 until his death. He was interested in nature from an early age, first in

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

s and then

s, on which he published his first article in 1827. He published ''A History of the Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland'' (2 volumes, 1861–1864, Ray Society), which included accounts of 304 species and gave the first adequate descriptions of British spiders. Ten of the plates included were by

Octavius Pickard-Cambridge Octavius Pickard-Cambridge FRS (3 November 1828 – 9 March 1917) was an English clergyman and zoologist. He was a keen arachnologist who described and named more than 900 species of spider from a large collection that he made with contrib ...

and twelve were by the Irish naturalist Robert Templeton. He died 11 May 1881.

Correspondence with Charles Darwin

Blackwall wrote four letters on the subject of spiders to

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

, dated 12 February 1868, 18 February 1868, 10 August 1869 and 8 September 1869. They survive in the Darwin Archive at Cambridge University Library. The first, second, and third letters are in direct response to communications from Darwin, though the whereabouts of these letters, presumably kept by Blackwall, are unknown. Their subject matter is, broadly, variation among spiders. The first letter begins

Legacy

Blackwall's work constituted a significant stage in the emergence of arachnology. He was one of the first to be interested in spiders of very small sizes, in particular those belonging to the

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

'' Neriene'' and '' Walckenaeria''. A number of spider species are named after Blackwall, including '' Idiops blackwalli'', '' Salticus blackwalli'', '' Scotophaeus blackwalli'', '' Theriodion blackwalli'' and the harvestman '' Leiobunum blackwalli''.

References

;Attribution

External links

Grupo Ibérico de Aracnología Bibliography

* ttps://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/bibliography/143674#/summary ''A History of the Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland'' at BHL British entomologists British arachnologists Fellows of the Linnean Society of London 1790 births 1881 deaths Scientists from Manchester People from Llanrwst {{UK-entomologist-stub