Thomas Borgmeier (31 October 1892 – 11 May 1975) was a German-Brazilian priest and entomologist and became a specialist on the ants of Brazil and on the flies in the family

Phoridae The Phoridae are a family of small, hump-backed flies resembling fruit flies. Phorid flies can often be identified by their escape habit of running rapidly across a surface rather than taking to the wing. This behaviour is a source of one of thei ...

. He was also the founder of the journals ''Revista de Entomologia'' edited it from 1931 to 1951 and the ''Studia Entomologica'' from 1958. Borgmeier was born in

Bielefeld Bielefeld () is a city in the Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region in the north-east of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population of 341,755, it is also the most populous city in the administrative region (''Regierungsbezirk'') of Detmold and the ...

, Germany and after studies at the local gymnasium he joined the Franciscan Order of Friars Minor and went to Brazil in 1910. After studying philosophy in

Curitiba Curitiba () is the capital and largest city in the state of Paraná (state), Paraná in Brazil. The city's population was 1,948,626 , making it the List of cities in Brazil by population, eighth most populous city in Brazil and the largest in ...

and theology in Petropolis he took an interest in ants which was furthered after meeting Professor Herman von Ihering of the

Museu Paulista The Museu Paulista of the University of São Paulo, commonly known as Museu do Ipiranga, is a Brazilian Museum#Historic houses, history museum located near the place where Emperor Pedro I of Brazil, Pedro I Brazilian Declaration of Independence, p ...

in Sao Paulo. An industrialist in Rio gifted Borgmeier with a binocular microscope and helped with reprints on ants from Ihering's library. Borgmeier was ordained priest in 1918, and while at Petropolis, he saw phorid flies parasitizing ants and discussing this with Jesuit priest and entomologist Hermann Schmitz led him to publish the first paper on the biology of ''Odontomachus affinis'' in 1920 and describe a new species of phorid ''Dohrniphora brasiliensis''. In 1922 Dr Arthur Neiva helped Borgmeier find more time to pursue entomology allowing him to join the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro as an adjunct research scientist in 1923. Borgmeier became a Brazilian citizen in 1927 and moved to Sao Paulo in 1928 to work under Neiva at the Instituto Biologico. He moved back to Rio in 1933 and headed the entomology section of the Instituto de Biologia Vegetal for eight years. From 1940 to 1952 he served as a counsellor to the local government and was also in charge of the Vozes publishing house. He retired from the publishing work in 1952 and moved to Jacarepagua where he served as a chaplain at a Catholic institution for blind women. He worked here for twenty years during which time he worked on the systematics of ants in the region. He wrote a monograph on the Ecitonines of the Neotropics and passed on his ant collection to W.W. Kempf. He then worked on the Phoridae of the world. Borgmeier was given an honorary doctorate by the St. Bonaventure University, New York in 1945. He was awarded the Costa Lima prize in 1962. The Franciscan Order conferred the honorary degree of Lector Generalis Jubilatus in 1965.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Borgmeier, Thomas Brazilian entomologists Myrmecologists 1892 births 1975 deaths 20th-century Brazilian zoologists German emigrants to Brazil