Richard Herbert Foote (2 May 1918 – 9 February 2002) was an American entomologist who specialized in the taxonomy of fruit flies. The ''Handbook of the Fruit Flies of America North of Mexico'' published in 1993 was a major work. He was a promoter of the use of information technology for the cataloguing of insect species. Foote was born in

Bozeman, Montana Bozeman is a city and the county seat of Gallatin County, Montana, United States. Located in southwest Montana, the 2020 census put Bozeman's population at 53,293, making it the fourth-largest city in Montana. It is the principal city of th ...

to Herbert and June. His father was a director of the water and sewage division of the Montana government and had been involved in management of typhoid. Foote graduated from

Montana State University Montana State University (MSU) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Bozeman, Montana. It is the state's largest university. MSU offers baccalaureate degrees in 60 fields, master's degrees in 6 ...

in 1941 and served in the US Army in Europe and worked in pest control after the war. He became a curator of medical insects at the CDC collection in Atlanta, Georgia in 1947. He received a ScD from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

in 1952 with studies on mosquito larvae. He then joined the

US Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the United States federal executive departments, federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, ...

to catalogue the medically important mosquitoes. In 1954 he shifted to the study of

Tephritidae The Tephritidae are one of two fly families referred to as fruit flies, the other family being the Drosophilidae. The family Tephritidae does not include the biological model organisms of the genus ''Drosophila'' (in the family Drosophilidae), w ...

and worked there until his retirement in 1983. He continued to work there and produced the ''Handbook of the Fruit Flies of America North of Mexico'' in 1993. He was also an editor of the ''Journal of Economic Entomology''. He was also an early adopter of computers and information technology for the cataloguing of taxonomic information.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Foote, Richard H. 1918 births 2002 deaths American entomologists People from Bozeman, Montana Johns Hopkins University alumni 20th-century American zoologists