Horace Donisthorpe

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Horace St. John Kelly Donisthorpe (17 March 1870 - 22 April 1951) was an eccentric British myrmecologist and coleopterist, memorable in part for his enthusiastic championing of the renaming of the genus Lasius after him as Donisthorpea, and for his many claims of discovering new species of beetles and ants. He is often considered to be the greatest figure in British myrmecology. Educated at Mill Hill House, Leicester and Oakham School, Donisthorpe went to Heidelberg University to read medicine. However, his "too sensitive nature" forced him to give up this career. Being possessed of a private income, from about 1890 he devoted his life to the study of beetles and ants. Probably the best known of his collecting grounds were the ancient forests of Windsor Great Park in Berkshire where he had permission to collect extensively and where so many of his important discoveries were made.