Loveridge, Arthur

Arthur Loveridge was a British biologist and herpetologist who wrote about animals in East Africa, particularly Tanzania, and New Guinea. He gave scientific names to several gecko species in the region. In 1924, he joined the Museum of Comparative Zoology in the grounds of Harvard University, where he was the curator of herpetology. He returned to East Africa on several field trips and wrote many scientific papers before retiring from Harvard in 1957. On retirement, they moved to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, from where he continued his interest in natural history, publishing several articles on the island's wildlife in the St Helena Wirebird and St Helena News Review in the 1960s & 1970s. Several species and subspecies of reptiles are named in his honor, including Afroedura loveridgei, Anolis loveridgei, Atractus loveridgei, Elapsoidea loveridgei, Emoia loveridgei, Gongylophis colubrinus loveridgei, Melanoseps loveridgei, Philothamnus nitidus loveridgei, and Typhlops loveridgei.[1]

Three species of endemic St Helenian insect were named after him. the cranefly Dicranomyia loveridgeana, the blackfly Simulium loveridgei, and the subgenus Loveridgeana of the hoverfly genus Sphaerophoria, with Spherophora (Loveridgeana) beattiei known on the island as Loveridge's hoverfly. His insect collecting satchel is on display in the St Helena Museum in Jamestown