Alpheus Spring Packard, LL.D. (February 19, 1839 – February 14, 1905) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 entomologist and palaeontologist. He was the son of Alpheus Spring Packard, Sr. (1798–1884) and the brother of William Alfred Packard

William Alfred Packard

William Alfred Packard was an American classical scholar, born at Brunswick, Maine. He was the son of the educator, Alpheus Spring Packard, Sr., and the brother of entomologist Alpheus Spring Packard. He graduated at Bowdoin in 1851, studied at the University of Göttingen in 1857-58, and became a...

. He was born in Brunswick

Brunswick, Maine

Brunswick is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States. The population was 20,278 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Portland-South Portland-Biddeford metropolitan area. Brunswick is home to Bowdoin College, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum, , and the...

, Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

 and was Professor of Zoology

Zoology

Zoology |zoölogy]]), is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct...

 and Geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

 at Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

 in Providence, Rhode Island

Providence, Rhode Island

Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...

 from 1878 until his death. He was a vocal proponent of the Neo-Lamarckian

Lamarckism

Lamarckism is the idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring . It is named after the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , who incorporated the action of soft inheritance into his evolutionary theories...

 theory of evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

.

His chief work was the classification and anatomy of arthropod

Arthropod

An arthropod is an invertebrate animal having an exoskeleton , a segmented body, and jointed appendages. Arthropods are members of the phylum Arthropoda , and include the insects, arachnids, crustaceans, and others...

s, and contributions to economic entomology

Entomology

Entomology is the scientific study of insects, a branch of arthropodology...

, zoogeography

Zoogeography

Zoogeography is the branch of the science of biogeography that is concerned with the geographic distribution of animal species.-External links:*: A course outline and collection of Web resources by Dr. Taylor, UBC...

, and the phylogeny and metamorphoses of insect

Insect

Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...

s. Packard was appointed to the United States Entomological Commission

United States Entomological Commission

The United States Entomological Commission was established by an Act of Congress in 1877 as a department under the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories headed by Dr. Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden. The commission was created to find a solution for the Rocky Mountain...

 in 1877 where he served with Charles Valentine Riley

Charles Valentine Riley

Charles Valentine Riley was a British-born American entomologist and artist.-Early Life:The son of a Church of England minister, Charles Valentine Riley was born on 19 September, 1843 in London’s Chelsea district. When he was around eleven his parents, the Rev. Charles and Mary Riley, chose to...

 and Cyrus Thomas

Cyrus Thomas

Cyrus Thomas was a U.S. ethnologist and entomologist prominent in the late 19th century and noted for his studies of the natural history of the American West.-Biography:Thomas was born in Kingsport, Tennessee...

  He wrote school textbooks, such as Zoölogy for High Schools and Colleges (eleventh edition, 1904). His Monograph of the Bombycine Moths of North America was published in three parts (1895, 1905, 1915, edited by T. D. A. Cockerell).

Writings by A. S. Packard

• Guide to the Study of Insects (1869; third edition, 1872)
• The Mammoth Cave and its Inhabitants (1872), with F. W. Putnam
• Life-History of Animals (1876)
• A Naturalist on the Labrador Coast (1891)
• Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution: His Life and Work (1901), French translation, 1903.

External links

• Gallica Two works by Packard
• Brunoniana Biography
• Nomina circumscribentia insectorum On the phylogeny of the Lepidoptera. Zoologischer Anzeiger, 18 (465): 228-236 1895.