Robert Evans Snodgrass

Infobox Person
name = Robert Evans Snodgrass


image_size = 267px
caption = Robert Evans Snodgrass (middle) flanked by H.E. Hinton (left) and V.B. Wigglesworth at the X International Congress of Entomology, Montreal, August 1956
birth_date = 1875
birth_place =
death_date = 1962
death_place =
occupation =
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Robert Evans Snodgrass (R.E. Snodgrass) (1875 - 1962) was an American entomologist and artist who made important contributions to the fields of arthropod morphology, anatomy, evolution, and metamorphosis¹.

He was the author of 78 scientific articles and six books², including "Insects, Their Ways and Means of Living" (1930) and the book considered to be his crowning achievement³, the "Principles of Insect Morphology" (1935).

Biography

R.E. Snodgrass was born in St. Louis, Missouri on July 5th, 1875, to James Cathcart Snodgrass and Annie Elizabeth Evans Snodgrass, where he lived until he was eight years old¹. He was the oldest of three children. His admitted first ambition in life was to be a railway engineer or a Pullman conductor, though frequent visits to the St. Louis Zoo aroused his early interests in zoology¹. His first recollections of entomology were recorded by E.B. Thurman¹:

The first entomological observation which Dr. Snodgrass recalls is seeing that the legs of grasshoppers, cut off by his father's lawnmower, could still kick while lying on the pavement. This apparently mysterious fact made a strong impression on him, and he decided that sometime he would look into the matter.

In 1883, he and the his family moved to Wetmore, Kansas, where his father worked in a local bank, and young Snodgrass began work as a self-taught taxidermist¹. He had a particular interest in birds, even expressing a desire to become an ornithologist, though his family only allowed limited shooting of birds for his mounted collections. At age 15, the family again moved, this time to Ontario, California, where they settled on a 20-acre ranch and grew oranges, prunes, and grapes¹. It was here that Snodgrass entered a Methodist preparatory school at the high school level, then known as Chaffey College¹. He studied Latin, Greek, French, German, physics, chemistry, and drawing, but notably no biology because the curriculum forbade involving the teaching of biological evolution¹. Snodgrass bypassed this problem by reading Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer in his free time¹. His openly professed belief in biological evolution caused him personal problems in his relationships at home and eventually resulted in being expelled from church activities in his community¹.

In 1895, at the age of 20, Snodgrass entered Stanford University and majored in zoology, taking classes such as general zoology, embryology, entomology with Dr. V.L. Kellogg, ichthyology with then Stanford president Dr. David Starr Jordan, and comparative vertebrate anatomy. His first opportunity to conduct research came from Dr. Kellogg, who set him to work on the biting lice (Mallophaga). The excitement of research, and the prospect for publishing original work led to his giving up the desire to become an orntithologist¹, and the publication of his first two science articles (works 1,2). During this time, Snodgrass also participated in his first two field expeditions, the first to the Pibilof Islands led by Dr. Jordan, and the second to the Galapagos Islands, led by Edward Heller¹. Snodgrass eventually published seven papers with Heller regarding organisms collected during the Galapagos expedition¹ (works 3, 5, 6, 7, 12, 16, 19). Snodgrass graduated from Standford University with his A.B. degree in Zoology in 1901.

References

*1. Thurman, E. B. (1959a) Robert Evans Snodgrass, insect anatomist and morphologist. Smithsonian Misc. Coll., 137:1-17.
*2. Thurman, E. B. (1959b) Bibliography of R. E. Snodgrass between the years 1896 and 1958. Smithsonian Misc. Coll., 137: 19-22.
*3. Eickwort, G. C. (1993) "From the foreword to the 1993 reprinting of" Snodgrass, R. E. Principles of Insect Morphology. Cornell Press. pp. ix-xi.

External links

* [http://siarchives.si.edu/findingaids/FARU7132.htm Smithsonian Institution Archives (Short biography and list of holdings for R.E. Snodgrass)]
* [http://www.archive.org/details/39088001578236 Snodgrass, R.E. (1930) "Insects, their ways and means of living" (Scanned book)]
* [http://www.life.umd.edu/entm/shultzlab/snodgrass/ The Snodgrass Tapes]
* [http://www.life.umd.edu/entm/shultzlab/snodgrass/Lecture1/indexq.htm The Snodgrass Tapes, Lecture 1. Facts and Theories on the Insect Head (Audio link of Dr. Snodgrass lecturing in 1960)]
* [http://www.life.umd.edu/entm/shultzlab/snodgrass/Lecture2/indexq.htm The Snodgrass Tapes, Lecture 2. Facts and Theories on the Insect Head (Audio link of Dr. Snodgrass lecturing in 1960)]
* [http://www.life.umd.edu/entm/shultzlab/snodgrass/Lecture3/indexq.htm The Snodgrass Tapes, Lecture 3. Evolution of the Arthropods (Audio link of Dr. Snodgrass lecturing in 1960)]