Colin Gasking Butler (26 October 1913 – 4 January 2016) was a British entomologist who first isolated the

pheromone A pheromone () is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Pheromones are chemicals capable of acting like hormones outside the body of the secreting individual, to affect the behavio ...

, known as "queen substance", which attracts drones to

queen bee A queen bee is typically an adult, mated female ( gyne) that lives in a colony or hive of honey bees. With fully developed reproductive organs, the queen is usually the mother of most, if not all, of the bees in the beehive. Queens are develope ...

s. The son of a schoolmaster, Butler was born at

Horsham Horsham () is a market town on the upper reaches of the River Arun on the fringe of the Weald in West Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester. Nearby to ...

and educated at

Monkton Combe School Monkton Combe School is a public school ( fee-charging boarding and day school), in the village of Monkton Combe near Bath in Somerset, England. History Monkton Combe School was founded in 1868 by the Revd. Francis Pocock, a former curate ...

, Bath, and at

Queens' College, Cambridge Queens' College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Queens' is one of the 16 "old colleges" of the university, and was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou. Its buildings span the R ...

. Following his graduation, he won a scholarship doing research at the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and was later appointed to superintend

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

's entomological field station. He eventually left Cambridge for the entomology department of the

Rothamsted Experimental Station Rothamsted Research, previously known as the Rothamsted Experimental Station and then the Institute of Arable Crops Research, is one of the oldest agricultural research institutions in the world, having been founded in 1843. It is located at Harp ...

Harpenden Harpenden () is a town and civil parish in the City and District of St Albans in the county of Hertfordshire, England. The population of the built-up area was 30,674 in the 2021 census, while the population of the civil parish was 31,128. Harpe ...

, where his research helped to uncover the "queen substance" pheromone. He worked at Rothamsted until his retirement in 1976 as head of the entomology department, publishing several books."Butler, Dr Colin Gasking"
''Who's Who 2013'', A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press, December 2012; online edn, November 2012; accessed 22 July 2017.

Other

Butler served as president of the Cornwall Naturalists Trust and the National Trust Regional Committee member for Devon and Cornwall.

Death

Butler died on 4 January 2016 at the age of 102 after a short illness.Obituary: Butler, Dr Colin Gasking, OBE, FRS
, legacy.com; accessed 22 July 2017.

References

Officers of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Royal Society 1913 births 2016 deaths British men centenarians British entomologists New Naturalist writers People educated at Monkton Combe School Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge {{UK-entomologist-stub