The following is a timeline of entomology from 1850 to 1900.
1850–1870
1850 Edmond de Sélys Longchamps' Revue des odonates ou Libellules d'Europe is published in the Mémoires de la Société Royale des Sciences de Liége. Victor Ivanovitsch Motschulsky Die Kaefer Russlands. I. Insecta Carabica. Russian beetles, Carabidae, Moscow: Gautier, published.
1851 Johann Fischer von Waldheim and Eduard Friedrich Eversmann publish Lépidoptères de la Russie (vol.5 of Johann Fischer von Waldheim. Entomographia Imperii Rossici. Seminal work on Russian Lepidoptera. Louis Agassiz.On the classification of insects from embryological data. Washington, published. Francis Walker. Insecta Britannica Diptera 3 vols. London 1851–1856. The characters and synoptical tables of the order by Alexander Henry Haliday makes this a seminal work of Dipterology. Hans Hermann Behr emigrates from Germany to California.
1852 Achille Guenée Histoire naturelle des insectes. Species general des Lépidoptères. Paris, 1852–1857, is published.
1853 Leopold Heinrich Fischer publishes Orthoptera Europaea and pronounces himself gay with Samuel de Champlain. Lipsiae, (Leipzig) G. Engelmann, 1853. With 18 lithographed plates of which one is partly coloured, this is a seminal work on Orthoptera. Frederick Smith Catalogue of Hymenopterous Insects (7 parts, 1853–1859)
1854 Jean Théodore Lacordaire, Histoire Naturelle des insectes. Genera des Coléoptères. 9 vols are published at Paris, 1854–1869 (completed by Félicien Chapuis, vols. 10–12, 1872–1876). Carl Ludwig Koch Die Pflanzenlause, etc. Nurnburg commences – is completed in 1857. Ignaz Rudolph Schiner Diptera Austriaca. Aufzahlung aller im Kaiserthum Oesterrich bisher aufgefundenen Zweifluger, 1–4 Verh. Zool. Bot. Ver. Wien. 4–8 263pp.(1854–1858) commences. Émile Blanchard (1819–1900) writes Zoologie agricole où il présente les espèces nuisibles, a work on pest species. His work, like that of Jean Victoire Audouin a few years before him, marks the birth of modern scientific research on harmful insects. Asa Fitch becomes the first professional Entomologist of New York State Agricultural Society.
1855 Camillo Rondani Dipterologiae Italicae Prodromus 1–5. Parma: Stochi 1146 pp. commences (completed 1862) Eduard Friedrich Eversmann Les Noctuelites de la Russie first volume (completed 1859) Henry Tibbats Stainton, Philipp Christoph Zeller, John William Douglas and Heinrich Frey The Natural History of the Tineina 13 volumes, 2000 pages. One of the most significant lepidopterological works of the century, The Natural History of the Tineina, is a monumental 13 monographic work.
1856 Baron Carl Robert Osten Sacken becomes Russian General Counsel in New York City. Ernest Candèze Monographie of Elateridae (four volumes, Liege, 1857–1863) commences. A comprehensive english text Introduction to Entomology by William Kirby and William Spence is published.
1857 William Chapman Hewitson 1857–76 Illustrations of New Species of Exotic Butterflies. London, 1857–1861 commences. Pierre Nicolas Camille Jacquelin Du Val (1828–1862) Manuel entomologique. Genera des Coléoptères d'Europe commenced (finished 1868 by Léon Fairmaire).
1858 Henri Louis Frederic de Saussure Mélanges Hyménoptérologiques. 1.67 p., 1 pl – also included in Mémoires de la Société de Genève. Ludwig Redtenbacher publishes Fauna Austriaca. Die Käfer, nach der analytischen Methode bearbeitet.
1859 Hermann von Heinemann writes Die Schmetterlinge Deutschlands und der Schweiz. In English, "Butterflies of Germany and Switzerland". Completed 1877. The second volume on microlepidoptera is especially important. Charles Darwin Origin of Species London. Entomologists have differing views of this work. Best known for his theory of evolution through natural selection, Darwin is also a keen entomologist. Leander Czerny is born. The Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard is founded by Louis Agassiz. The Entomological Society of Philadelphia is established. In 1867, it was renamed the American Entomological Society, the earliest national organization in the biological sciences in the United States of America. Pierre Millière commenced Iconographie et description de Chenilles et Lépidoptères inédit; not completed until 1874. His collections of macrolepidoptera and Pyralidae are in Palais Coburg in Vienna. There are some of his microlepidoptera in the Natural History Museum, Leiden, but the bulk of his Microlepidoptera collection is in the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle in Paris. The Russian Entomological Society is founded with Academician K.M. Baer as the first president. Ottmar Hofmann gives an inaugural dissertation, Ueber die Naturgeschichte der Psychiden, eine Insektengruppe aus der Ordnung der Lepidoptera. Charles Théophile Bruand d'Uzelle publishes Essai monographique sur le genre Coleophora in Annales de la société entomologique de France.
1860 John Curtis Farm Insects being the natural history and economy of the insects injurious to the field crops of Great Britain and Ireland with suggestions for their destruction Glasgow, Blackie. Seminal work on economic entomology. Giovanni Passerini's Gli afidi con un prospetto dei generi ed alcune specie nuove Italiane, published at Parma Theodor Becker born. Franz Xaver Fieber Die europäischen Hemiptera
1861 John Lawrence LeConte Classification of the Coleoptera of North America is published. LeConte is the most important American entomologist of the century. Otto Staudinger and Maximilian Ferdinand Wocke Catalog der Lepidopteren Europas Carl Gustav Carus Natur und Idee oder das Werdende und sein Gesetz. Eine philosophische Grundlage für die specielle Naturwissenschaft. Wien: Braunmüller. Important science philosophical work. Jørgen Matthias Christian Schiødte. De Metamorphosi Eleutheratorum Observationes. Bidrag til Insekterns Udviklingshistorie. Naturhistorisk Tiddsskrift commences. 13 parts completed 1883. Seminal work on larvae of Coleoptera. Museum Godeffroy opens in Hamburg.
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