
Adolph Hempel (10 April 1870 – 4 November 1949) was an American entomologist who worked and became a citizen in Brazil. He was involved in cataloguing the insects of the region and worked on agriculturally important insects and their management. He also took some interest in the birds.
Hempel was born in
Buffalo, Ohio and graduated from the
University of Illinois, Urbana
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the fou ...
. He moved to Brazil in the late 1890s and began to work at the
Museu Paulista
The Museu Paulista of the University of São Paulo, commonly known as Museu do Ipiranga, is a Brazilian history museum located near the place where Emperor Pedro I proclaimed Brazil's independence on the banks of Ipiranga brook in the Southeast ...
. He also worked for the Campinas Agronomic Institute. He was involved in the identification of pest insects. In 1929 he introduced a wasp ''
Prorops nasuta'' from Uganda to control the coffee berry borer ''
Hypothenemus hampei
''Hypothenemus hampei'', the coffee berry borer, is a small beetle native to Africa. It is the most harmful insect pest of coffee worldwide. Spanish common names of the insect include ''barrenador del café'' (coffee borer), ''gorgojo del café' ...
''. Hempel took a special interest in the
Coccoidea
Scale insects are small insects of the Order (biology), order Hemiptera, suborder Sternorrhyncha. Of dramatically variable appearance and extreme sexual dimorphism, they comprise the infraorder Coccomorpha which is considered a more convenient g ...
and described numerous species. He retired in 1938, leaving behind an extensive collection. He published extensively covering a wide range of insect taxa. He also took some interest in other fauna and collected a number of bird specimens.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hempel, Adolph
1870 births
1949 deaths
Brazilian entomologists