Person

Scudder, Samuel Hubbard, 1837-1911

1837-1911

Samuel Hubbard Scudder was an American entomologist and palaeontologist, considered the founder of insect palaeontology. He came from a Congregationalist family with roots going back to Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans. Educated at Boston Latin School, he graduated from Williams College in 1847 at the head of his class. He later earned a second bachelor's degree studying with the famous naturalist Louis Agassiz at Harvard. A prolific author of some 791 papers between 1858 and 1902, he contributed an addendum to George Mercer Dawson's Progress Report of the Canadian Geological Survey, 1875-76, on the rare extinct fossil species of ant, Aphaenogaster longaeva; the fossil was discovered in shale that Dawson had surveyed near Quesnel, B.C. Scudder also had contacts with Dawson through his work as staff palaeontologist for the US Geological Survey (1886-1892). Other palaeontological works included Index of Fossil Insects of the World (1891), but he also authored many works on present-day insects, notably Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) including the monumental Butterflies of the Eastern United States and Canada, and some 180 papers on Orthoptera (grasshoppers), describing 630 species in 106 genera.
As well as his extensive research, he filled many roles at scientific societies of the time, including as president of the Boston Society of Natural History (1880-1887) and as librarian for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
His son Gardner accompanied him on many field trips until contracting tuberculosis and dying in 1902. Scudder himself developed Parkinson's that same year, necessitating his retirement and leading to his death in 1911.