Lepidopterology
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Mr. Bachelor Butterfly, aged 35; has but one passion, the pursuit of Natural History." --The Veritable History of Mr. Bachelor Butterfly (1845) |
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A lepidopterist or aurelian is a person who specialises in the study of Lepidoptera, members of an order encompassing moths and the three superfamilies of butterflies, skipper butterflies, and moth-butterflies. The term also includes hobbyists who are not formal scholars, who catch, collect, study, or simply observe lepidopterans. Post-Renaissance, the rise of the "lepidopterist" can be attributed to the expanding interest in science, nature and the surroundings. When Linnaeus wrote the tenth edition of the Systema Naturae in 1758, there was already "a substantial body of published work on Lepidopteran natural history" (Kristensen, 1999).
These included:
- Insectorum sive Minimorum Animalium Theatrum - Thomas Mouffet (1634)
- Metamorphosis Naturalis - Jan Goedart (1662–67 )
- Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium - Maria S. Merian (1705), whose work included illustrated accounts of European Lepidoptera
- Historia Insectorum - John Ray (1710)
- Papilionum Brittaniae icones - James Petiver (1717)
Fictional lepidopterists
- The father, Ben, in the TV series Butterflies
- The character Red Jack, who claimed to be both Jack the Ripper and God, in the comic book Doom Patrol
- The character Judge Holden in Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian.
- Stein in Lord Jim
- Ada in Vladimir Nabokov's Ada has dreams as a young girl of being a lepidopterist on the fictional planet 'anti-terra'. (Nabokov himself was an accomplished lepidopterist.)
- The character Frederick Clegg in the novel The Collector (1962) by John Fowles, also made into a film (1965) directed by William Wyler.
- Mr. Doe and Mr. Cardholder of the Venture Bros. who contact Jonas Venture Jr. at Spider Skull Island, to deal with The Monarch, a character with a butterfly theme.
- Jame Gumb, the main antagonist in the novel and film The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris.
See also
