Dyar, Harrison G. (Harrison Gray), 1866-1929

Harrison Gray Dyar (1866-1929) was honorary Custodian of the National Museum's collection of lepidoptera for more than thirty years; he served largely as an unpaid curator, although he was briefly on the payroll of the Department of Agriculture. A graduate of Columbia University (Ph.D. 1895), he worked on lepidoptera, especially their larvae; larvae of saw flies, larvae of mosquitoes, and bacteria. Around the turn of the century, interest in mosquito-borne diseases attracted his attention; he and Frederick Knab were responsible for the taxonomic portions of the work on mosquitoes of North and Central America and the West Indies for the volumes published by the Carnegie Institution between 1912 and 1917. He collected and reared insects in New York, Colorado, Florida, British Columbia, Panama, and elsewhere. He was proprietor and editor of Insecutor Inscitiae Menstruus, 1913-1927, as well as editor of other publications.

Smithsonian Institution Archives Field Book Project: Person : Description : rid_711_pid_EACP708

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