Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell

Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell (1866–1948) was an American zoologist, born at Norwood, England, and brother of Sydney Cockerell. He was educated at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, and then studied botany in the field in Colorado in 1887–90. Subsequently, he became a taxonomist and published numerous papers on the Hymenoptera, Hemiptera, Mollusca and plants, as well as publications on paleontology and evolution.

Personal life

Cockerell was born in Norwood, Greater London and died in San Diego, California.

He married Annie Sarah Fenn in 1891 (she died in 1893) and Wilmatte Porter in 1900. In 1901, he named the ultramarine blue chromodorid ''Mexichromis porterae'' (now '' Felimare porterae'') in her honor. After their marriage in 1900, they frequently went on collecting expeditions together and assembled a large private library of natural history films, which they showed to schoolchildren and public audiences to promote the cause of environmental conservation.

After his death he was buried in Columbia Cemetery, Boulder, Colorado.

Professional life

Between 1891 and 1901, Cockerell was curator of the public museum of Kingston, Jamaica, professor of entomology of the New Mexico Agricultural Experiment Station. In 1900–03 he was instructor in biology at the New Mexico Normal School. While there he taught and mentored Charlotte Cortlandt Ellis. In 1903–04 Cockerell was the curator of the Colorado College Museum; and in 1904 he became lecturer on entomology and in 1906 professor of systematic zoology, at the University of Colorado, where he worked with Junius Henderson in establishing the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. During World War II he operated the Desert Museum in Palm Springs, California.

Publications

Cockerell was author of more than 2,200 articles in scientific publications, especially on the Hymenoptera, Hemiptera, and Mollusca, and on paleontology and various phases of evolution, plus some 1700 additional authored works, including treatises on social reform and education. He was one of the most prolific taxonomists in history, publishing descriptions of over 9,000 species and genera of insects alone, some 6,400 of which were bees, and some 1,000 mollusks, arachnids, fungi, mammals, fish and plants. This includes descriptions of numerous fossil taxa, such as the landmark study, ''Some Fossil Insects from Florissant, Colorado'' (1913).

In an obituary note that appeared in the ''Nature'' of Feb.14, 1948, R.B. Benson had observed that Cockerell "acquired the habit of hurrying his ideas and observations into print as soon as he could. The habit persisted throughout his long life, so that almost all his work appeared in the form of short papers."

Plants

Cockerell and Wilmatte traveled to the United Kingdom in 1921. While there, they visited the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh where, according to himself in 1937, Isaac Bayley Balfour proved that the plant ''Primula ellisiae'' was a distinct species from ''P. rusbyi''. He had named this taxon in honor of its discoverer, one of his students, Charlotte Cortlandt Ellis. However, at present this taxon is regarded as a synonym of ''P. rusbyi''.

Honors

A dorm in the Engineering Quad at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the moth '' Givira theodori'' are named in his honor.

Taxa

Taxa named by Cockerell include:

References

External links

Biography of Cockerell


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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cockerell, Theodore Dru Alison
1866 births
1948 deaths
British emigrants to the United States
American zoologists
American entomologists
Hymenopterists
American curators
American science writers
University of Colorado faculty
New Mexico Highlands University faculty