Joseph Charles Bequaert

Joseph Charles Bequaert was an American naturalist of Belgian origin, born 24 May 1886 in Torhout (Belgium) and died on 12 January 1982 in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Career
Bequaert obtained a doctorate in botany at the University of Ghent in 1908. He was an entomologist, and from 1910 to 1912 he was part of la commission Belge sur la maladie du sommeil (Belgian Committee on sleeping sickness). From 1913 to 1915 he worked as a botanist in the Belgian Congo and also collected mollusks.
In 1916 he emigrated to the United States and was an associate researcher from 1917 to 1922 at the American Museum of Natural History. He became an American citizen in 1921, and taught entomology at the Harvard Medical School. From 1929 to 1956 he was Curator of Insects at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, and was Professor of Zoology from 1951 to 1956 within the same institution.
Bequaert became president of the American Malacological Union in 1954. He left his post at Harvard in 1956. From 1956 to 1960 he lectured in biology at the University of Houston. With Walter Bernard Miller (1918–2000), he published The Mollusks of the Arid Southwest in 1973.
Memberships
He was a member of various learned societies: Zoological Society of France, the Entomological Society of America, the Belgian Royal Society of Entomology, the Belgian Society of Tropical Medicine, the Royal Institute of Colonial Belgium, Koninklijk Natuurwetenschappelijk Genootschap Dodonaea, and the Natural History Society of North Africa.
References in botany
Bequaert was formerly commemorated in the taxon Bequaertiodendron magalismontanum (Sond.) Heine & J.H.Hemsl. now known as Englerophytum magalismontanum (Sond.) T.D.Penn.
He was also honoured in 1993, in the naming of Normandiodendron bequaertii.
References in entomology
Bequaert was formerly commemorated in several names of ants. Note that only valid names are listed (as of July 2016).
Aenictogiton bequaerti Forel, 1913
Anochetus bequaerti Forel, 1913
Azteca bequaerti Wheeler, 1929
Camponotus confluens bequaerti Forel, 1913
Cataulacus bequaerti Forel, 1913
Centromyrmex bequaerti (Forel, 1913)
Strumigenys bequaerti Santschi, 1923
Crematogaster bequaerti Forel, 1913
Dorylus bequaerti Forel, 1913
Monomorium bequaerti Forel, 1913
Pheidole bequaerti Forel, 1913
Phrynoponera bequaerti Wheeler, 1922
Tetramorium bequaerti Forel, 1913
References in herpetology
Bequaert is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of snake and two frogs:
Philothamnus bequaerti (Schmidt, 1923)
Phrynobatrachus bequaerti (Barbour and Loveridge, 1929)
Leptopelis bequaerti Loveridge, 1941
Bibliography
He published over 250 papers; over 50 of them are about molluscs.
(incomplete)
Pilsbry HA, Bequaert J (1927). "The Aquatic Mollusks of the Belgian Congo. With a geographical and ecological account of Congo malacology". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 53 (2): 69-602. PDF.
Bequaert J (1936). "A new North American mason-wasp from Virginia, with notes on some allied forms". Proceedings of the United States National Museum 84 (3004): 79–87.
Bequaert J (1948). Monograph of the Strophocheilidae, neotropical family of terrestrial mollusks. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. 210 pp.
Bequaert J (1950). Studies in the Achatininae, a group of African land snails. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology. 216 pp.
Bequaert J, Miller WB (1973). The mollusks of the arid Southwest, with an Arizona checklist. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. xvi + 271 p.
References
Further reading
Abbott RT (1974). American Malacologists. A National Register of Professional and Amateur Malacologists and Private Shell Collectors and Biographies of Early American Mollusk Workers Born Between 1618 and 1900, American Malacologists (Falls Church, Virginie): iv + 494 p.
External links
Biography by Charles H. Smith, Joshua Woleben and Carubie Rodgers
Joseph Charles Bequaert Papers, circa 1922-1949 from the Smithsonian Institution Archives
1886 births
1982 deaths
Belgian entomologists
Dipterists
20th-century Belgian zoologists
American malacologists
People associated with the American Museum of Natural History
People from Torhout
20th-century British zoologists
Belgian emigrants to the United States
20th-century American zoologists