History of UT Entomology Part 1: It Starts With Ants

September 18, 2020 • by Nicole Elmer
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From Ants: Their Structure, Development, and Behavior (1910)


wheeler1915

In the centennial issue of UT’s Discovery: Research and Scholarship at the University of Texas at Austin, C.P. Oliver shares some of Wheeler’s stories about his time at UT. He states that in 1899, Wheeler had been disappointed at UT’s scarcity of biological equipment and the library’s still-growing selection of journals. Many which he normally read were not available. “Apparently,” Oliver humorously wrote, “he needed solace, a place to meditate or suffer in silence.” To do so, Wheeler would go to Barton Creek which was nothing like it is now with its hip urban surroundings. Barton Creek was outside of the city limits at the time, so it offered a real retreat from human activity. It was during one of Wheeler's solo excursions here that his new research focus appeared. “I happened to see a file of cutting ants (Atta texana), each with its piece of leaf poised in its mandible," Wheeler wrote in one of his many publications, "I vividly remember the thrill of delightful fascination with which I watched the red-brown creatures trudging along under their green loads, and it seemed to me that I had at last found a group of organisms that would repay no end of study.”

Two of Wheeler’s graduate students, Charles Thomas Brues (1879 – 1955) and Axel Melander (1878-1962) were also crucial in driving Wheeler’s interest in ants, as they would often show him species of certain army ants and fire ants that he had never seen before. Both students received their Masters of Science degrees from UT in 1902. Brues and Melander would later become notable entomologists in their own right. Their work focused on taxonomy, feeding habits of insects, insect paleontology, medical entomology, fluorescent staining of insect tissues, and intracellular bacteria of insects.

old-main

No. That's not Dracula's summer home. That's the Old Main Building, original home to the School of Biology.

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