Joseph Charles Bequaert

He obtained a doctorate in botany at the University of Ghent in 1908. He was an entomologist, and from 1910 to 1912 he was part of la commission Belge sur la maladie du sommeil (Belgian Committee on sleeping sickness). From 1913 to 1915 he worked as a botanist in the Belgian Congo and also collected mollusks.

In 1916 he emigrated to the United States and was an associate researcher from 1917 to 1922 in the American Museum of Natural History. He became an American citizen in 1921, and taught Entomology at the Harvard Medical School. From 1929 to 1956 he was Curator of insects at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard, and was Professor of Zoology from 1951 to 1956 within the same institution.

Bequaert became president of the American Malacological Union in 1954. He left his post at Harvard in 1956. From 1956 to 1960, he lectured in biology at the University of Houston. With Walter Bernard Miller (1918–2000), he published The Mollusks of the Arid Southwest in 1973.

He was a member of various learned societies: Zoological Society of France, the Entomological Society of America, the Belgian Royal Society of Entomology, the Belgian Society of Tropical Medicine, the Royal Institute of Colonial Belgium, Koninklijk Natuurwetenschappelijk Genootschap Dodonaea, and the Natural History Society of North Africa.

Bequaert was formerly commemorated in the taxon Bequaertiodendron magalismontanum (Sond.) Heine & J.H.Hemsl. now known as Englerophytum magalismontanum (Sond.) T.D.Penn.

Bequaert was formerly commemorated in several names of ants. Note that only valid names are listed (as of July 2016).

Aenictogiton bequaerti Forel, 1913 [3]

Anochetus bequaerti Forel, 1913 [4]

Azteca bequaerti Wheeler, 1929 [5]

Camponotus confluens bequaerti Forel, 1913 [6]

Cataulacus bequaerti Forel, 1913 [7]

Centromyrmex bequaerti (Forel, 1913) [8]

Strumigenys bequaerti Santschi, 1923 [9]

Crematogaster bequaerti Forel, 1913 [10]

Dorylus bequaerti Forel, 1913 [11]

Monomorium bequaerti Forel, 1913 [12]

Pheidole bequaerti Forel, 1913 [13]

Phrynoponera bequaerti Wheeler, 1922 [14]

Tetramorium bequaerti Forel, 1913 [15]

Bequaert is commemorated in the scientific name of a species of snake and two frogs:[16][17]

• Philothamnus bequaerti Schmidt, 1923
• Phrynobatrachus bequaerti (Barbour and Loveridge, 1929)
• Leptopelis bequaerti Loveridge, 1941

He published over 250 papers, over 50 of them are about molluscs.[1]

(incomplete)

• Pilsbry H. A. & Bequaert J. (1927). "The Aquatic Mollusks of the Belgian Congo. With a geographical and ecological account of Congo malacology". Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 53(2): 69-602. PDF.
• (1938). A new North American mason-wasp from Virginia (Washington). 79-87.
• (1948). Monograph of the Strophocheilidae, neotropical family of terrestrial mollusks. The Museum, Cambridge: 210 pp.
• (1950). Studies in the Achatininae, a group of African land snails. The Museum, Cambridge: 216 pp.
• Bequaert J. & Miller W. B. (1918–2000). (1973). The mollusks of the arid Southwest, with an Arizona checklist. University of Arizona Press, Tucson: xvi + 271 p.

• Abbott R. T. (1974). American Malacologists. A National Register of Professional and Amateur Malacologists and Private Shell Collectors and Biographies of Early American Mollusk Workers Born Between 1618 and 1900, American Malacologists (Falls Church, Virginie): iv + 494 p. ISBN 0-913792-02-0

• (in English) Biography by Charles H. Smith, Joshua Woleben and Carubie Rodgers
• Joseph Charles Bequaert Papers, circa 1922-1949 from the Smithsonian Institution Archives