James Petiver's 1717 Papilionum Britanniae : an analysis of the first comprehensive account of British butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea) | Zendy

Richard I. VaneWright | Zendy

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James Petiver's 1717 Papilionum Britanniae : an analysis of the first comprehensive account of British butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilionoidea)

Author(s) -

Richard I. VaneWright

Publication year - 2020

Publication title -

notes and records the royal society journal of the history of science

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 0.19

H-Index - 18

eISSN - 1743-0178

pISSN - 0035-9149

DOI - 10.1098/rsnr.2019.0014

Subject(s) - reputation , sociology , odds , law , history , social science , political science , medicine , logistic regression

Although the contributions of James Petiver to the early development of systematic natural history are widely acknowledged, he is often criticized for scientific, curatorial and even social shortcomings. This rather dubious reputation is at odds with his standing among entomologists as ‘the father of British butterflies’. Shortly before his death in 1718, Petiver published a densely packed eight-page pamphlet entitledPapilionum Britanniae . Analysis of this work, which at first sight makes an apparently exaggerated claim of accounting for ‘above eighty English butterflies’, reveals that Petiver was an original, perceptive and truly systematic entomologist, in several important respects ahead of his time.

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