Elliot Pinhey
Encyclopedia
Elliot Charles Gordon Pinhey (18 July 1910 Knokke
Knokke
Knokke is one of a group of communities that are all grouped in the administrative community Knokke-Heist, in the province of West Flanders in Flanders, Belgium. Knokke itself has 15,653 inhabitants .Knokke-Heist has 33,818 inhabitants ....
, Brugge
Brügge
Brügge is a municipality in the district of Rendsburg-Eckernförde, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.Its small church and market square are noted for their beauty....
- 8 May 2000 Cowfold near Horsham
Horsham
Horsham is a market town with a population of 55,657 on the upper reaches of the River Arun in the centre of the Weald, West Sussex, in the historic County of Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester...
, West Sussex
West Sussex
West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...
), was an entomologist who worked in Africa and specialised in African Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera
Lepidoptera is a large order of insects that includes moths and butterflies . It is one of the most widespread and widely recognizable insect orders in the world, encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies...
and Odonata
Odonata
Odonata is an order of insects, encompassing dragonflies and damselflies . The word dragonfly is also sometimes used to refer to all Odonata, but the back-formation odonate is a more correct English name for the group as a whole...
. Born of British parents on holiday in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, Pinhey made major contributions in entomology to the knowledge of butterflies, moths and dragonflies. Elliot Pinhey's interest in natural history first developed during his early education in England.
He obtained a BSc at the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
in mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology in 1934, after which he joined the teaching profession as a Science Master. His chronically poor health led to his doctor's suggesting he emigrate to a more congenial climate. Accordingly he arrived in Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was the name of the British colony situated north of the Limpopo River and the Union of South Africa. From its independence in 1965 until its extinction in 1980, it was known as Rhodesia...
in 1939 and took up a teaching post as Science Master. A stint with the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
Meteorology department followed, and on his release he joined the Agriculture Department as economic entomologist, working on Acarina
Acarina
Acari are a taxon of arachnids that contains mites and ticks. The diversity of the Acari is extraordinary and its fossil history goes back to at least the early Devonian period. As a result, acarologists have proposed a complex set of taxonomic ranks to classify mites...
, Coccoidea and Chrysomelidae. His interest in Odonata
Odonata
Odonata is an order of insects, encompassing dragonflies and damselflies . The word dragonfly is also sometimes used to refer to all Odonata, but the back-formation odonate is a more correct English name for the group as a whole...
surfaced in 1947 through J.A. Whelan who had joined his department, and Colonel F.C. Fraser who encouraged him.
He joined the Transvaal Museum
Transvaal Museum
""The Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, formerly Transvaal Museum, is a natural history museum situated in Pretoria, South Africa....
in Pretoria
Pretoria
Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...
as assistant professional officer in entomology and later became the Museum's Odonata specialist. He was with the Coryndon Museum in Nairobi
Nairobi
Nairobi is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The city and its surrounding area also forms the Nairobi County. The name "Nairobi" comes from the Maasai phrase Enkare Nyirobi, which translates to "the place of cool waters". However, it is popularly known as the "Green City in the Sun" and is...
from 1949 to 1955 under Dr. LSB Leakey
Louis Leakey
Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey was a British archaeologist and naturalist whose work was important in establishing human evolutionary development in Africa. He also played a major role in creating organizations for future research in Africa and for protecting wildlife there...
, during which period he was able to collect extensively in East and Central Africa, and develop an interest in Orthoptera
Orthoptera
Orthoptera is an order of insects with paurometabolous or incomplete metamorphosis, including the grasshoppers, crickets and locusts.Many insects in this order produce sound by rubbing their wings against each other or their legs, the wings or legs containing rows of corrugated bumps...
and Homoptera
Homoptera
Homoptera is a deprecated suborder of order Hemiptera; recent morphological studies and DNA analysis strongly suggests that the order is paraphyletic. It was therefore split into the suborders Sternorrhyncha, Auchenorrhyncha, and Coleorrhyncha....
which he was not able to follow up. Pinhey was invited in 1955 to take up the position of Keeper of Invertebrate Zoology
Invertebrate zoology
Invertebrate zoology is the biological discipline that consists of the study of invertebrate animals, i.e. animals without a backbone...
at the National Museum in Bulawayo
Bulawayo
Bulawayo is the second largest city in Zimbabwe after the capital Harare, with an estimated population in 2010 of 2,000,000. It is located in Matabeleland, 439 km southwest of Harare, and is now treated as a separate provincial area from Matabeleland...
. He was awarded a D.Sc. by the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
in 1962 for his publications in entomology.
He served as President of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa from 1974 to 1975, was an active member of the Societas Internationalis Odonatologica (SIO) and was widely regarded as the doyen of African Odonatology.
Elliot Pinhey published almost 200 names for species, subspecies and forms of Odonata
Odonata
Odonata is an order of insects, encompassing dragonflies and damselflies . The word dragonfly is also sometimes used to refer to all Odonata, but the back-formation odonate is a more correct English name for the group as a whole...
in thirty-three years, from 1950 to 1982. He named more than a tenth of known Afrotropical species, making him the most prolific author of that fauna aside from his predecessor, Frederic Fraser (Dijkstra et al. 2003). Sixty-three percent of his primary types are held in the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo (NMBZ), where he worked from 1955 to 1980. His legacy is one of the major collections of African Odonata in the world and the most important one in the continent itself (Vick et al. 2001). There are 112 name-bearing types designated by Pinhey,
Bernard Kettlewell
Henry Bernard Davis Kettlewell was a British geneticist, lepidopterist and medical doctor, who carried out research into the influence of industrial melanism on natural selection in moths, showing why moths are darker in polluted areas.-Early life:Kettlewell was born in Howden, Yorkshire, and...
(lepidopterist and geneticist known for his research on industrial melanism), Capt. Norman Denbigh Riley
Norman Denbigh Riley
Norman Denbigh Riley CBE was a British entomologist with a special interest in the Lepidoptera and in particular the Lycaenidae. For many years he was Keeper of Entomology at the British Museum....
(1890–1979)(Keeper of Entomology at the British Museum), Richard South
Richard South
Richard South was an English entomologist who specialised in LepidopteraHe wrote A list of butterflies collected by Captain F. M. Bailey in western China, South-Eastern Tibet, and the Mishmi Hills, 1911.J. Bomb. nat. Hist...
, Edward Bagnall Poulton
Edward Bagnall Poulton
Sir Edward Bagnall Poulton, FRS was a British evolutionary biologist who was a lifelong advocate of natural selection...
(Hope Professor of Zoology at Oxford), G.D. Hale Carpenter
Geoffrey Douglas Hale Carpenter
G.D. Hale Carpenter MBE MA DM FRS was a British entomologist and physician. He worked first at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and in Uganda, on tse-tse flies and sleeping sickness...
(Hope Professor of Entomology) and Poulton's successor, Sir Guy Anstruther Knox Marshall
Guy Anstruther Knox Marshall
Sir Guy Anstruther Knox Marshall , was an Indian-born British entomologist and authority on Curculionidae....
KCMG FRS (1872–1959) specialist in Curculionidae
Curculionidae
Curculionidae is the family of the "true" weevils . It was formerly recognized in 1998 as the largest of any animal family, with over 40,000 species described worldwide at that time...
of the British Museum (Natural History), Baron Charles de Worms
Baron Charles de Worms
Baron Charles George Maurice de Worms was born in London and educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge. Most of de Worms' working life was spent as a chemist in the Institute of the Royal Cancer Hospital and Porton Down Experimental Station, producing numerous papers on cancer. He became...
and Frederick William Frohawk
Frederick William Frohawk
Frederick William Frohawk was an English zoological artist and lepidopterist.Frohawk was the author of Natural History of British Butterflies , The Complete Book of British Butterflies and Varieties of British Butterflies .Frohawk was born at Brisley Hall, East Dereham, Norfolk, the son of a...
.
Pinhey obtained material from species-rich, poorly accessible areas, such as NW Republic of Congo and near the confluence of the Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...
, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
borders. Therefore his collection includes a large proportion of ‘rare’ species. Species described by Pinhey and known only from the type series and/or material in NMBZ are Chlorocypha rubriventris, Africallagma cuneistigma, Pseudagrion estesi, Aciagrion macrootithenae, A. nodosum, A. zambiense, Aeshna moori, Onychogomphus rossii, Paragomphus zambeziensis and Trithemis fumosa. New records have only come to light recently for Prodasineura flavifacies, Ceriagrion mourae and Paragomphus cataractae. Other rarities are Chlorocypha frigida, C. schmidti, Platycypha picta, Elattoneura incerta, Allocnemis mitwabae, Pseudagrion coeruleipunctum, P. greeni, Crocothemis brevistigma, Neodythemis fitzgeraldi and Trithemis brydeni.
Family life
Elliot Pinhey and his wife Nancy had one child, a daughter named Rosalind. They retired to Billingham, West Sussex where Elliot Pinhey fell ill in 1989 and had two light strokes. His failing health necessitated his staying at a nursing home in Cowfold near HorshamHorsham
Horsham is a market town with a population of 55,657 on the upper reaches of the River Arun in the centre of the Weald, West Sussex, in the historic County of Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester...
until his death in 2000.
Papers and books
- Pinhey, E., 1951. The dragonflies of Southern Africa. Transvaal Museum Memoir 5: 1-335.
- Pinhey, E., 1959. A new dragonfly from Southern Rhodesia. Occasional Papers of the National Museum of Southern Rhodesia (B) 3:340-342. [Microgomphus mozambicensis].
- Pinhey, E., 1960. Odonata collected by Oxford University Tanganyika Expedition: and a West African species. Occasional Papers of the National Museum of Southern Rhodesia (B) 3:509-515. [Acanthagyna ochraceipes, Zygonyx rougeoti].
- Pinhey, E., 1961a. Dragonflies (Odonata) of Central Africa. Occasional Papers of the Rhodes-Livingstone Museum 14: 1-97.[Crocothemis brevistigma, Neodythemis fitzgeraldi,Zygonyx flavicosta mwinilungae].
- Pinhey, E., 1961b. Dragonflies collected on an expedition from Rhodesia to Nigeria in 1958,Part 1, observations on the journey and the new discoveries in dragonflies. Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine 96: 256-271. [Onychogomphus kitchingmani, Paragomphus zambeziensis, Tragogomphus mamfei, Malgassophlebia bispina nigeriae, Neodythemis gorillae, Orthetrum rhodesiae, Trithemis aenea, T. grouti, Zygonyx ikomae].
- Pinhey, E., 1961c. Some dragonflies (Odonata) from Angola; and descriptions of three new species of the family Gomphidae. Publicacoes Culturais Companhia de Diamantes de Angola 56: 79-86. [Microgomphus witchwoodensis].
- Pinhey, E., 1961d. A survey of the dragonflies (order Odonata) of Eastern Africa. British Museum (Natural History), London. [Trithemis monardi imitata].
- Pinhey, E., 1962a. New or little known dragonflies (Odonata) of Central and Southern Africa. Occasional Papers of the National Museum of Southern Rhodesia (B) 3: 892-911. [Anax congoliath lisomboae].
- Pinhey, E., 1962b. Some records of Odonata collected in Tropical Africa. Journal of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa 25: 20-50. [Heliaeschna sembe, Aethiothemis watulikii, Tetrathemis sulci, Trithemis fumosa].
- Pinhey, E., 1962c. A descriptive catalogue of the Odonata of the African continent (up to December 1959) (part II). Publicações Culturais da Companhia de Diamantes de Angola 59: 165-324.
- Pinhey, E., 1963a. A remarkable new primitive dragonfly (Odonata) from the Victoria Falls. Novos Taxa Entomologicos 32: 1-6. [Archaeophlebia victoriae].
- Pinhey, E., 1963b. Some anomalous types of African Odonata and the description of a new species. Journal of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa 26: 146-160. [Paragomphus cataractae].
- Pinhey, E., 1964a. Dragonflies (Odonata) of the Angola-Congo borders of Rhodesia. Publicacoes Culturais Companhia de Diamantes de Angola 63: 97-130. [Aeshna rileyi raphaeli, Onychogomphus quirkii, Allorhizucha longistipes, Zygonyx atritibiae].
- Pinhey, E., 1964b. A revision of the African members of the genus Pseudagrion Selys (Odonata). Revista de Entomologia de Moçambique 7: 5-196.
- Pinhey, E., 1966a. New distributional records for African Odonata and notes on a few larvae. Arnoldia Rhodesia 2 (26): 1-5. [Onychogomphus rossii].
- Pinhey, E., 1966b. Notes on African Odonata, particularly type material. Revue de Zoologie et de Botanique Africaines 73: 283-308.
- Pinhey, E., 1966c. Odonata. Exploration du Parc National de la Garamba 45: 1-114. [Orthetrum latihami, O. saegeri, Porpax bipunctus].
- Pinhey, E., 1967. Odonata of Ngamiland (1967). Arnoldia Rhodesia 3 (15): 1-17. [Gomphidia guyi].
- Pinhey, E., 1969a. A new species of Gomphidae (Odonata) from Cape Province. Novos Taxa Entomologicos 69: 3-5. [Paragomphus dicksoni].
- Pinhey, E., 1969b. Tandem linkage in dichoptic and other Anisoptera (Odonata). Occasional Papers of the National Museum of Southern Rhodesia 4: 137-207.
- Pinhey, E., 1970a. Monographic study of the genus Trithemis Brauer (Odonata: Libellulidae). Memoirs of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa 11: 1-159. [Trithemis arteriosa ennediensis, T. arteriosa form socotrensis, T. bifida, T. brydeni, T. caruncula, T. congolica, T. falconis, T. jacksoni, T. kirbyi ardens form aurantiaca, T. monardi insuffusa, T. pluvialis var. melanisticta].
- Pinhey, E., 1970b. A new approach to African Orthetrum (Odonata). Occasional Papers of the National Museum of Southern Rhodesia (B) 4: 261-321. [Orthetrum abbotti malgassicum, O. chrysostigma toddii, O. icteromelan cinctifrons].
- Pinhey, E., 1970c. The status of Cinitogomphus Pinhey (Odonata). Arnoldia Rhodesia 4 (38): 1-5.
- Pinhey, E., 1971a. Odonata collected in Republique Centre-Africaine by R. Pujol. Arnoldia Rhodesia 5 (18): 1-16. [Nesciothemis pujoli].
- Pinhey, E., 1971b. Odonata of Fernando Po Island and of neighbouring Cameroons Territory. Journal of the Entomological Society of Southern Africa 34: 215-230.
- Pinhey, E., 1974. Three undescribed Odonata taxa from Africa. Arnoldia Rhodesia 7 (2): 1-6. [Gomphidia quarrei confinii, Eleuthemis buettikoferi quadrigutta].
- Pinhey, E., 1976. Dragonflies (Odonata) of Botswana, with ecological notes. Occasional Papers of the National Museum of Southern Rhodesia (B) 5: 524-601. [Phyllogomphus brunneus, Macromia paludosa, Diplacodes okavangoensis].
- Pinhey, E., 1978. Comparative notes on an African species of Trithemis Brauer (Odonata:Anisoptera) and its congeners. Arnoldia Rhodesia 8 (26): 1-8. [Trithemis donaldsoni dejouxi].
- Pinhey, E., 1981a. Notes on the distribution of Tetrathemis polleni (Selys) and a new subspecies of Zygonyx torrida (Kirby) (Odonata: Libellulidae). Arnoldia Zimbabwe 9 (6): 73-76. [Zygonyx torrida insulana].
- Pinhey, E., 1981b. Two interesting species of Aeshna Fabricius from Zambia (Odonata:Aeshnidae). Arnoldia Zimbabwe 9 (4): 61-68. [Aeshna moori].
- Pinhey, E., 1984. A checklist of the Odonata of Zimbabwe and Zambia. Smithersia 3: 1-64.
- Pinhey, E. & N. Pinhey, 1984. A preliminary list of the Odonata collected by Dr J. Kielland in Tanzania for Dr M.A. Lieftinck. Odonatologica 13: 129-138.
Sources
- The name-bearing types of Odonata held in the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, with systematic notes on Afrotropical taxa.Part 1: introduction and Anisoptera - Klaas-Douwe B. Dijkstra
- Moths of Southern Africa - Elliot Pinhey (Tafelberg, Cape Town November 1975) ISBN 0 624 00784 7
Publications
- Butterflies of Rhodesia - with a short introduction to the insect world (Rhodesia Scientific Association, Salisbury 1949)
- Hawk Moths of Central and Southern Africa (1962) ISBN
- The Butterflies of Southern Africa (1965)
- Introduction to Insect Study in Africa (London : O.U.P., 1968) ISBN 0 194 16503 5
- Emperor Moths of South and South-Central Africa (Struik, Cape Town 1972) ISBN 0 869 77016 0
- A Guide to the Insects of Zambia (with Ian Loe) (1973)
- A Guide to the Insects of Africa (with Ian Loe) (Hamlyn, 1974) ISBN 0 600 34855 5
- Odonata of the Northwest Cameroons and particularly of the islands stretching southwards from the Guinea Gulf (1974 Bonn. zool. Beitr. 25(1-3):179-212)
- A collection of Odonata from Angola (Arnoldia 7(23): 1-16 (1975))
- Moths of Southern Africa (Tafelberg, Cape Town November 1975) ISBN 0 624 00784 7
- Some Well Known African Moths (Longman 1975) ISBN 0 582 64171 3
- A Guide to the Butterflies of Zambia (with Ian D. Loe) (Lusaka, Anglo American Corporation (Central Africa) 1977)ISBN 0 903 84102 9
- Odonata of the Seychelles and other Indian Ocean island groups (with Blackman, R. A. A) based primarily on the Bristol University Expedition of 1964-1965. Arnoldia 3 (12): 1-38.