Roger Ward Crosskey (29 January 1930 - 4 September 2017) was a British

entomologist Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...

who worked at the Commonwealth Institute of Entomology and at the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more ...

in London specializing in blackflies (

Simuliidae A black fly or blackfly (sometimes called a buffalo gnat, turkey gnat, or white socks) is any member of the family Simuliidae of the Culicomorpha infraorder. It is related to the Ceratopogonidae, Chironomidae, and Thaumaleidae. Over 2,200 speci ...

Tachinidae The Tachinidae are a large and variable family of true flies within the insect order Diptera, with more than 8,200 known species and many more to be discovered. Over 1,300 species have been described in North America alone. Insects in this fami ...

and the hymenopteran superfamily

Evanioidea The Evanioidea are a small hymenopteran superfamily that includes three families, two of which (Aulacidae and Gasteruptiidae) are much more closely related to one another than they are to the remaining family, Evaniidae. The rich fossil record, h ...

. Roger Crosskey was born in

Croydon Croydon is a large town in south London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a local government district of Greater London. It is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater London, with an extens ...

to Harold and Elfreda née Ward. His mother died of cancer when he was sixteen and after that spent a lot of his time outdoors collecting insects including butterflies and diving beetles. He studied at

Whitgift School ("He who perseveres, conquers") , established = , closed = , type = Independent school , religious_affiliation = Church of England , president = , head_label = Head Master , head = Christopher Ramsey , c ...

and his first publication was in 1951. He studied ensign wasps ( Aulacidae and Gasteruptiidae) for his master's degree from the University of London. He married Margaret Eileen ("Peggy") née Godfrey with whom he studied at college. Peggy was also an entomologist and worked alongside him throughout his career. Crosskey joined as an entomologist in the service of the Government of Northern Nigeria to study sleeping sickness in 1951. He also studied

onchocerciasis Onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness, is a disease caused by infection with the parasitic worm '' Onchocerca volvulus''. Symptoms include severe itching, bumps under the skin, and blindness. It is the second-most common cause of blind ...

vectors and helped in monitoring and examining the effectiveness of control measures. Along with John B. Davies, he conducted studies on blackflies in the Galma valley. The work conducted over six years involved catching nearly 13,000 flies over an area of 1000 square miles and dissecting 1200 flies to check for larvae of '' Onchocerca volvulus''. They found nearly 20% of the flies being infected in the rainy season and formulated a DDT spraying scheme to reduce the transmission of the parasite. The scheme has come to be called the Crosskey-Davies Experiment of 1954–1960. He returned from Africa to London in 1959 and began to work as a dipterologist and specialized in the Tachinidae. Roger illustrated most of his publications by himself. Crosskey revamped the classification of the Simuliidae. Crosskey and Graham B. White used the biogeographical designation of "Afrotropical Region" as a more specific term than the previously used terms such as "Ethiopian region" or "Sub-Saharan Africa". He began to work along with Curtis Sabrosky and became a key member of the ICZN code committee. The tachinid genera '' Crosskeya'' and '' Crosskeyellum'' are named in his honour as are nearly a dozen species of flies with the epithet ''crosskeyi''. Crosskey himself described a couple of hundred species and established a few new genera while revising the dipteran groups that he worked on.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crosskey, Roger Ward British entomologists 1930 births 2017 deaths