Edward A.
Chapin
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Ed Chapin grew up with an interest in
insects and natural history. He received a Master of Science
degree in 1917 from Massachusetts State University in Amherst.
Turned down for military service due to a mild case of
childhood polio, he began work for the Bureau of the Biological
Survey in Washington, D. C. He transferred to the Bureau of
Animal Industry in 1920 and then to the Bureau of Entomology in 1926
where he became a taxonomist in Coleoptera working at the U. S.
National Museum. He became a curator at the museum in 1934
where he stayed until his retirement in 1954.
While a curator
at the USNM, he traveled to Colombia in 1942 and 1946, Jamaica in
1937 and 1941, and Chile in 1945. He was a specialist in the
Scarabaeidae, Cleridae, and Coccinellidae. At the age of 60 he
retired and moved to West Medway, Massachusetts; while there he
became an associate of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard,
working mostly on coccinellids. After he was 70, he had
increasing trouble walking due to the failure of nerves in his legs;
he would often fall suddenly and find himself helpless. When
he was 75, while taking one of his walks around his extensive
property, he apparently fell and was caught in a grass fire that
badly burned him. He never regained consciousness and died a
short time later.
Chapin published 19 papers on Scarabaeidae,
and many of these dealt with the fauna of the West
Indies.
Reference:
Muesebeck, C.F.W., R.D. Gordon and
B.D. Burks. 1971. Edward Albert Chapin.
Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 73: 99-104.
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