Judson Linsley Gressitt (16 June 1914 – 26 April 1982) 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 ...

and naturalist who worked in

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. He worked mainly on beetle diversity in

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

and in applied areas, particularly medical entomology, and was the founder of the journal ''

Pacific Insects ''Pacific Insects'' was a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Entomology Department at the Bishop Museum from 1959 to 1982. It was renamed to ''International Journal of Entomology'' in 1983 and discontinued in 1985. It was t ...

'' (which became the ''International Journal of Entomology'') and the

Wau Ecology Institute The Wau Ecology Institute (WEI) was established in 1961 near the town of Wau, Papua New Guinea, in Morobe province, as a field station of the Bishop Museum. In 1973 it became an independent environmental organisation. It has laboratory space fo ...

in Papua New Guinea. Apart from insects, he collected specimens in numerous taxa and several have been named after him.

Life

Gressitt was born in Tokyo, Japan, where his parents were

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...

missionaries. The family became refugees after the earthquake of 1923 and they moved to

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

in 1925 where he recovered from pneumonia and typhoid. Through his cousin E. Gorton Linsley, he became interested in insects and the outdoors as

Boy Scouts Boy Scouts may refer to: * Boy Scout, a participant in the Boy Scout Movement. * Scouting, also known as the Boy Scout Movement. * An organisation in the Scouting Movement, although many of these organizations also have female members. There are ...

where they were influenced by Brighton C. Cain. He began to collect specimens in the Sierra Nevada and when the family moved back to Japan, he began to work at the USDA lab in Yokohoma. In 1932 he graduated from the American School, Tokyo and taught English at a Japanese school for a year. He made a visit to Formosa for three months between studies at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and collected nearly 50000 specimens. In 1935 he moved from Stanford to

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

and obtained a BS in 1938 followed by a Master's in 1939. His first entomological publication was on Japanese

Cerambycidae The longhorn beetles (Cerambycidae), also known as long-horned or longicorns, are a large family of beetles, with over 35,000 species described. Most species are characterized by extremely long antennae, which are often as long as or longer than ...

. After his MS, he worked at the Lingnan Natural History Museum in Canton and taught at the

Lingnan University Lingnan University (LN/LU), formerly called Lingnan College, is a public liberal arts university in Hong Kong. It aims to provide students with an education in the liberal arts tradition and has joined the Global Liberal Arts Alliance since ...

. In 1941, he married Margaret Kriete, who also came from an American missionary family in Japan. Margaret was interested in music, teaching music at the

Honolulu Symphony The Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, formerly known as Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, was founded in 1900. It is the second oldest orchestra in the USA west of the Rocky Mountains. The orchestra now plays at Neal S. Blaisdell Concert Hall and the Hawaii The ...

, and took a keen interest in natural history publishing along with Linsley. The Japanese placed the couple under internship in Canton on December 8, 1941 (in Canton time, the day of the

Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, ju ...

) and later kept separate during which time their first daughter was born. The family were reunited only in 1943 and returned to the United States. Linsley then worked at Berkeley and received a Ph.D. in 1945 for research on the

Cassidinae The Cassidinae (tortoise and leaf-mining beetles) are a subfamily of the leaf beetles, or Chrysomelidae. The antennae arise close to each other and some members have the pronotal and elytral edges extended to the side and covering the legs so as ...

. He worked towards the end of the war with the US Medical Research Unit in Guam, Philippines, and Japan. In the 1950s he returned to work in Southeast Asia and took part in an expedition to study ''

Metasequoia glyptostroboides ''Metasequoia glyptostroboides'', the dawn redwood, is a fast-growing, endangered deciduous pinophyta, conifer. It is the sole living species of the genus ''Metasequoia'', one of three genera in the subfamily Sequoioideae of the family (botany), ...

'', a living fossil in

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

. In 1950, the family was again interned in Canton at the beginning of the Korean War and was released only in 1951. In 1952, the family moved to Honolulu and he worked at the Bishop Museum. He was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1955 and a Fellow of 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, ...

since 1943. In 1965 he explored the insects of the Antarctic region. Gressitt founded the journal ''Pacific Insects'' and published numerous descriptions. He published nearly 300 papers, mostly monograph and worked mainly on beetles.

Gressitt Glacier Rennick Glacier is broad glacier, nearly long, which is one of the largest in Antarctica. It rises on the polar plateau westward of Mesa Range and is wide, narrowing to near the coast. It takes its name from Rennick Bay where the glacier reache ...

in Antarctica was named after him. He and his wife were killed in an aircrash on a routine flight (

CAAC Flight 3303 CAAC Flight 3303 or China Southern Airlines Flight 3303 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from the former Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport to Guilin Qifengling Airport, China. It was serviced by a Hawker Siddeley Trident, regist ...

) from Canton to Guilin where he had been invited to talk. They had four daughters. The species ''

Paramelomys gressitti Gressitt's mosaic-tailed rat (''Paramelomys gressitti'') is a species of rodent native to Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New G ...

''; the leaf-beetle genera '' Gressittella'' and '' Gressittana''; and the horsefly genus '' Gressittia'' are named after him.

References

External links

J. Linsley Gressitt Center for Research in Entomology, Bishop MuseumPhotograph of Gressitt in 1955, Guggenheim FellowEntomology of Antarctica (1967)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gressitt, Judson Linsley 1914 births 1982 deaths American entomologists Stanford University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni Academic staff of Lingnan University (Guangzhou) Fellows of the Entomological Society of America Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in China Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in 1982 20th-century American zoologists American expatriates in Japan