Ferdinand Rudow
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Ferdinand Rudow (2 April 1840 – 3 September 1920) was a German
entomologist Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...
best known for the poor quality of his taxonomic work. He described over 200 species of
wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder ...
s during his lifetime, almost all of which have been revised as
synonyms A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...
of other species.


Biography

Rudow was born in the town of
Eckartsberga Eckartsberga () is a town in the Burgenlandkreis district of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated west of Naumburg. It is part of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") An der Finne. Since 2009 it has included the former municipa ...
, in what is now
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
. His father was a
merchant A merchant is a person who trades in goods produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated i ...
. Rudow began working as a teacher in 1865. He was granted his
doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...
in 1869 by
Leipzig University Leipzig University (), in Leipzig in Saxony, Germany, is one of the world's oldest universities and the second-oldest university (by consecutive years of existence) in Germany. The university was founded on 2 December 1409 by Frederick I, Electo ...
with a thesis on
mallophaga The Mallophaga are a possibly paraphyletic section of lice, known as chewing lice, biting lice, or bird lice, containing more than 3000 species. These lice are external parasites that feed mainly on birds, although some species also feed on mamma ...
, or chewing lice. By 1876 he was a senior teacher, later a professor, at a '' Gymnasium'' (a type of secondary school) in the German city of
Perleberg Perleberg (; North Brandenburgisch dialect, Margravian: ''Perlberg'') is the capital of the district of Prignitz, located in the northwest of the Germany, German state of Brandenburg. The town received German town law, city rights in 1239 and as of ...
. He retired from teaching in 1906, although he continued to publish. He died in
Naumburg Naumburg () is a town in (and the administrative capital of) the district Burgenlandkreis, in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany. It has a population of around 33,000. The Naumburg Cathedral became a UNES ...
in 1920.


Taxonomic work

Initially interested in studying
lice Louse (: lice) is the common name for any member of the infraorder Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera was previously recognized as an order, until a 2021 genetic study determined th ...
and
mite Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods) of two large orders, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari. However, most recent genetic analyses do not recover the two as eac ...
s, Rudow began to focus on
wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder ...
s in 1871. Over the course of his research, he described 234 species and varieties within the
Ichneumonidae The Ichneumonidae, also known as ichneumon wasps, ichneumonid wasps, ichneumonids, or Darwin wasps, are a family of parasitoid wasps of the insect order Hymenoptera. They are one of the most diverse groups within the Hymenoptera with roughly 25 ...
family of
parasitoid In evolutionary ecology, a parasitoid is an organism that lives in close association with its host (biology), host at the host's expense, eventually resulting in the death of the host. Parasitoidism is one of six major evolutionarily stable str ...
wasps, eventually amassing a collection of close to 14,000 insect specimens. Rudow donated the collection to the of
Jena Jena (; ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 in ...
personally in 1919. Numerous specimens in the collection were improperly stored, poorly identified, or damaged, although due to poor documentation it is impossible to say how much was received in poor condition and how much damage was caused by later poor storage. His work was heavily criticised as unscientific by his contemporaries. Richard Ritter von Stein denounced the poor quality of his publications as early as 1884. Rudow was aware of the criticism, and may have begun to withdraw from the scientific community as a result. He refused to accept modern systems of
nomenclature Nomenclature (, ) is a system of names or terms, or the rules for forming these terms in a particular field of arts or sciences. (The theoretical field studying nomenclature is sometimes referred to as ''onymology'' or ''taxonymy'' ). The principl ...
, and often wrote critically of them. In 1908, for example, he wrote that he was "disgusted by the activities of the so-called 'systematics'," whose changes he felt were confusing and unhelpful. He was known for describing the same species more than once, or calling different species by the same name in a single paper. He also described already-known species as new, likely by accident. His early publications, until approximately 1888, were comparatively detailed, but the descriptions in his later work were often so vague or inaccurate that comparisons of described species or identification by specimen was not possible. Basic information such as the location where specimens were found, their habitats, and their preferred hosts was generally either full of errors or not included at all. The species he described have been extensively revised by subsequent entomologists, including English entomologist John Frederick Perkins in the 1930s and J. Oehlke in the 1960s, and most of them are now considered synonyms of other species. In a 1993 article which presented a revision of 167 species described by Rudow, German entomologist Klaus Horstmann described him as "undoubtedly the most incompetent" taxonomist of Ichneumonidae. Only eleven of the species names examined in the article were retained as valid names. Later that same year, Horstmann and Martin Schwarz published a revision of 67 species described by Rudow in the wasp genera '' Pezolochus'' and '' Pezomachus'' between 1914 and 1917; only two, ''Pezomachus haemorhoidalis'' and ''Pezomachus rificeps'' were retained.


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* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rudow, Ferdinand German entomologists 1840 births 1920 deaths Leipzig University alumni