Donald Henry Colless (24 August 1922 – 16 February 2012), also known as Vale Don Colless or simply Don Colless, was an Australian entomologist. He was an authority on true

flies Flies are insects of the Order (biology), order Diptera, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwing ...

(Diptera).

Career

Colless was born in

Uralla Uralla is a town on the Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, Australia. The town is located at the intersection of the New England Highway and Thunderbolts Way, north of Sydney and about south west of the city of Armidale. At the , the townsh ...

, a small town in the

Northern Tablelands The Northern Tablelands, also known as the New England Tableland, is a plateau and a region of the Great Dividing Range in northern New South Wales, Australia. It includes the New England Range, the narrow highlands area of the New England reg ...

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

. In 1947, he graduated to

Bachelor of Agricultural Science The Bachelor of Science in Agriculture (BSAg) or the Bachelor of Agriculture (BAg) is the undergraduate academic degree awarded by tertiary faculty of agriculture. The program is typically four years of study at postsecondary level. In Canada, t ...

at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public university, public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one o ...

. In the same year he joined the

CSIRO The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research. CSIRO works with leading organisations around the world. From its headquarters in Canberra, CSIRO ...

for which he worked in North Borneo (now

Sabah Sabah () is a state of Malaysia located in northern Borneo, in the region of East Malaysia. Sabah borders the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and the North Kalimantan province of Indonesia to the south. The Federal Territory ...

) from 1947 to 1952. Subsequently he worked for eight years at the

University of Malaya The University of Malaya ( ms, Universiti Malaya, UM; abbreviated as UM or informally the Malayan University) is a public research university located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is the oldest and highest ranking Malaysian institution of highe ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

where he promoted to

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in 1956. During that time he conducted mosquito research with a special focus on actual and potential

disease vectors In epidemiology, a disease vector is any living agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen to another living organism; agents regarded as vectors are organisms, such as parasites or microbes. The first major discovery of a disease vec ...

. In 1960 he returned to the CSIRO where worked as taxonomist at the

Australian National Insect Collection The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research. CSIRO works with leading organisations around the world. From its headquarters in Canberra, CSIRO ...

(ANIC) until he retired in 1987. From 1971 to 1977 he was the chief curator of the ANIC. Colless described the two fly families

Perissommatidae The Perissommatidae are a family of flies (Diptera) that was proposed in 1962 by Donald Colless based on the species ''Perissomma fusca'' from Australia. The family now includes five extant species within the single genus ''Perissomma'', four from ...

and

Axiniidae Rhinophorinae is a subfamily of flies (Diptera), commonly known as Woodlouse Flies, found in all zoogeographic regions except Oceania, but mainly in the Palaearctic and Afrotropical regions. They are small, slender, black, bristly flies phyloge ...

, 13 new genera, including ''Valeseguya'', ''Perissomma'', ''Colonomyia'', and ''Chetoneura'' as well as 120 new species, including the mosquitoes ''

Aedes malayensis ''Aedes malayensis'' was first described in 1963 by Australian entomologist Donald Henry Colless as a subspecies of ''Aedes scutellaris'' from males collected at Pulau Hantu, Keppel Harbor, Singapore.Colless, D. H. 1963. Notes on the taxonomy of ...

'', ''Anopheles saungi'', ''Anopheles stookesi'', ''Culex alienus'', and ''Culex pseudovishnui''.

Research

Aside from entomology Colless was also very interested in the theory and philosophy of taxonomy and classification. Colless published 30 influential articles on the philosophical underpinnings and theory of taxonomy from 1966–1996. In total, he published 127 scientific papers and book chapters. His most cited and perhaps most utilized contribution is entitled ''Congruence between morphometric and allozyme data for Menidia species: a reappraisal'', in which he devised the calculation of the consensus fork index (CFI), which is sometimes referred to as Colless' index.

References

External links

Biographical entry at the Encyclopedia of Australian Science
{{DEFAULTSORT:Colless, Donald Henry Australian entomologists 1922 births 2012 deaths Australian expatriates in Malaysia