Terry Lee Erwin (December 1, 1940 – May 11, 2020) was an American
entomologist with the
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...
.
Erwin went to
Vallejo High School and then graduated in biology in 1964, followed by a masters in 1966 from San Jose State College (now
San Jose State University
San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) sy ...
). He went to the University of Alberta to study carabid beetles under
George Ball, obtaining a Ph.D. in 1969 followed by a post-doctoral stint at Harvard under
P. Jackson Darlington, Jr. He took up an entomologist position in the United States National Museum (later the Smithsonian Institution) but took a year off to study
carabid beetles at the University of Lund under
Carl H. Lindroth.
On return in 1971, Erwin was deputed to examine the beetles of Panama. By fogging the forest canopy with pesticide, he collected the falling specimens and found 1,200 species of beetles living in ''
Luehea seemannii'' trees. Of those 1,200 species of beetles, he estimated that 163 are found only in the ''Luehea seemannii'' tree and not in other species of trees. There are about 50,000 species of trees in the tropics and beetles make up 40% of insects and related animals. Erwin estimated that there are about twice as many species of insects and related animals in tropical trees as there are on the ground of the forest. Erwin is notable for his controversial extrapolation of 30 million as the total
number of arthropod species.
Erwin served as secretary of the
Society of Systematic Biologists from 1973 to 1975,
and was the editor in chief of ''
ZooKeys
''ZooKeys'' is a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal covering zoological taxonomy, phylogeny, and biogeography. It was established in 2008 and the editor-in-chief is Terry Erwin (Smithsonian Institution). It is published by Pensoft P ...
''. He described over 20 genera and more than 400 species of insect, and as of 2015 is commemorated in the names of 47 species, two genera, one subfamily and one subspecies.
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Erwin, Terry
1940 births
2020 deaths
American entomologists
American expatriates in Canada
American expatriates in Sweden
Coleopterists
Harvard University staff
San Jose State University alumni
Smithsonian Institution people
University of Alberta alumni
20th-century American zoologists
21st-century American zoologists
American taxonomists