Gertrude Ricardo
Gertrude Ricardo was a British entomologist and taxonomist who specialised in Diptera, particularly the families Asilidae and Tabanidae.
Biography
Gertrude Ricardo was born at Gatcombe Park House in Gloucestershire on 11 September 1862 and baptised on 15 October 1862 as Ellen Gertrude Ricardo at Minchinhampton church, Gloucestershire. Her parents were Henry David Ricardo and his wife Ellen. Ricardo's grandfather was the Liberal Member of Parliament David Ricardo the younger and her great-grandfather was the economist and Whig Member of Parliament David Ricardo.Ricardo was one of 11 siblings. The early education of the Ricardo children was at home, by a governess from Jersey named Julia Le Couteur.
Gertrude's father Henry David Ricardo died at the age of 39 in 1873 and her older brother Henry George Ricardo inherited Gatcombe Park, though it was held in trust for Henry George until he reached majority.
In 1895 Ricardo was living at number 25 Cleveland Square, Hyde Park, a house that was the residence of her mother Ellen. Ricardo was listed as an Associate of The Sanitary Institute; she had also passed examination to become an Inspector of Nuisance - this role would have involved trying to protect the public from sources of disease and contaminated food and was a precursor to the modern role of Public Health Inspector.
By the early 1900s Ricardo lived at 12 Cottesmore Gardens in Kensington with her sister Katharine Cecil Ricardo ; both were listed as registered to vote in local elections, which had become legal for property-owning women after the Local Government Act 1894.
From 1900 Ricardo began to publish taxonomy research papers based upon her studies of Diptera in the collection of the British Museum (Natural History). Some of Ricardo's work included examining flies collected in South Africa by William Lucas Distant and working with Pangoniinae material from the Budapest Museum which had been loaned to her by Kálmán Kertész so that she could compare them with Types from the collection of Francis Walker. In 1906 George Henry Verrall allowed Ricardo to borrow material from his private collection for her work on the genus Haematopota. Ricardo also worked on Tabanid flies from Algeria collected by Alfred Edwin Eaton. Ricardo was associated with the British Museum until 1927, and during her time working there she described many new Diptera species . The British Museum's Keeper of Entomology Norman Denbigh Riley summed up Ricardo's work like this in 1964: "she broke new ground, but left it very rough."
Ricardo's brother William Crawley Ricardo had emigrated to North America in 1895 with the intention of working as a ranchman, later becoming resident in the Vernon area of British Columbia, Canada. In 1901 William was managing a farm at Vernon and living with another Ricardo sister, Arabel Mary Ricardo. In 1902 Gertrude Ricardo traveled to Canada, including a visit to the area where her siblings lived, and she would later send a collection she had made of Canadian Hymenoptera to Charles Thomas Bingham at the British Museum. Bees collected by Ricardo at Vernon and Calgary were examined in 1912 by Theodore D. A. Cockerell, from which he described two new species: Stelis ricardonis named in Ricardo's honour, and Megachile vernonensis Cockerell, 1912.
In 1938 Ricardo was presented with a medal bearing an image of King Leopold III of Belgium for her work on material from Leopold III's tour of the Far East in 1928–1929.
In later life Ricardo lived at Phelps House, Castle Cary, Somerset, with her sisters Katharine Cecil Ricardo and Rachel Bertha Ricardo : all three women were described in 1939 as living by independent financial means and supported by two domestic servants. In the 1940s Ricardo occasionally opened Phelps House garden to the public as part of a scheme to raise money for local nursing charities. In February 1946 Ricardo enquired of Norman Denbigh Riley at the British Museum as to how to best divest her personal library of books about Diptera; Riley's reply suggesting that she donate them to the Museum survives in the NHM Archives.
Ricardo died at Springfield House, Pilton, Somerset, on 31 October 1950 at the age of 88.
Ricardo's own Diptera collection was gifted to the British Museum by her sister Rachel Bertha Ricardo.
Selected species described by Gertrude Ricardo
Current taxonomic status is listed, if known.Diptera: Family [Asilidae]
Alcimus brevipennis Ricardo, 1922 Alcimus cinerascens Ricardo, 1900 Alcimus nigrescens Ricardo, 1922 Asilus montanus Ricardo, 1922 Asilus orientalis Ricardo, 1922 Asilus pulcher Ricardo, 1922Dysmachus robustus Ricardo, 1922 Heligmonevra trisignata Ricardo, 1922 Laparus albicinctus Ricardo, 1900 Laphria aureopilosa Ricardo, 1900 Lophonotus albofasciatus Ricardo, 1900 Machimus assamensis Ricardo, 1919 Machimus chinensis Ricardo, 1919 Machimus excelsus Ricardo, 1922 Machimus pallipes Ricardo, 1922 Machimus pubescens Ricardo, 1922 Machimus rufipes Ricardo, 1922 Microstylum elegans Ricardo, 1900 Microstylum glabrum Ricardo, 1900 Microstylum nigrescens Ricardo, 1900 Ommatius fuscovittatua Ricardo, 1900 Philodicus dubius Ricardo, 1921 Philodicus femoralis Ricardo, 1921 Philodicus fuscipes Ricardo, 1921 Philodicus grandissimus Ricardo, 1921 Philodicus meridionalis Ricardo, 1921 Philodicus nigrescens Ricardo, 1921 Philodicus pallidipennis Ricardo, 1921 Philodicus thoracicus Ricardo 1921 Philodicus umbripennis Ricardo, 1921 Promachus abdominalis Ricardo, 1920 Promachus adamsi Ricardo, 1920 Promachus albicinctus Ricardo, 1900 Promachus beesoni Ricardo, 1921 Promachus bicolor Ricardo, 1900 Promachus breviventris Ricardo, 1920 Promachus obscuripes Ricardo, 1920 Promachus pallidus Ricardo, 1921 Promachus rufescens Ricardo, 1920 Promachus simpsoni Ricardo, 1920 Promachus sokotrae Ricardo, 1903 in ed. Forbes, 1903 Promachus ugandiensis Ricardo, 1920 Scylaticus rufescens Ricardo, 1900 Tolmerus angularis Ricardo, 1922 Tolmerus hirsutus Ricardo, 1922 Tolmerus nigripes Ricardo, 1922 Tolmerus parvus Ricardo, 1922 Tolmerus rubripes Ricardo, 1922Diptera: Family [Bombyliidae]
Exoprosopa basalis Ricardo, 1901 Exoprosopa elongata Ricardo, 1901 Exoprosopa major Ricardo, 1901 Exoprosopa nova Ricardo, 1901Exoprosopa nyasae Ricardo, 1901 Exoprosopa parva Ricardo, 1901 Exoprosopa unifasciata Ricardo, 1901 Hyperalonia vittata Ricardo, 1901 Lomatia nigrescens Ricardo, 1901Diptera: Family [Rhagionidae]
Pelecorhynchus aurantiacus Ricardo 1900 .Pelecorhynchus darwini Ricardo 1900 .Diptera: Family [Tabanidae]
Atylotus nigromaculatus Ricardo, 1900 Cadicera nigrescens Ricardo, 1900 Chrysops brasiliensis Ricardo, 1901 Chrysops flavocinctus Ricardo, 1902 Chrysops fuscipennis Ricardo, 1902 Chrysops indianus Ricardo, 1902 Chrysops madagascarensis Ricardo, 1902 Corizoneura distincta Ricardo, 1908 Corizoneura obscura Ricardo, 1908 Corizoneura pallidipennis Ricardo, 1900 Corizoneura umbratipennis Ricardo, 1900 Diatomineura longipennis Ricardo, 1902 Diatomineura minima Ricardo, 1900 Diatomineura leucothorax Ricardo, 1900 Diatomineura seminigra Ricardo, 1902 Erephrosis aureohirta Ricardo, 1900 Erephrosis fulvitibialis Ricardo, 1900Erephrosis fuscus Ricardo, 1902Erephrosis niger Ricardo, 1900Erephrosis rufescens Ricardo, 1900 Erephrosis rufopilosus Ricardo 1900Haematopota bipunctata Ricardo, 1906 Haematopota brevis Ricardo, 1906 Haematopota brunnescens Ricardo, 1906 Haematopota brunnipennis Ricardo, 1906 Haematopota cingalensis Ricardo, 1906 Haematopota distincta Ricardo, 1906 Haematopota hindostani Ricardo, 1917 Haematopota lata Ricardo, 1906Haematopota longa Ricardo, 1906 Haematopota montanus Ricardo, 1917 Haematopota nigrescens Ricardo, 1906 Haematopota rubida Ricardo, 1906 Haematopota similis Ricardo, 1906 Haematopota singularis Ricardo, 1908 Haematopota tessellata Ricardo, 1906 Haematopota ugandae Ricardo, 1906 Haematopota unicolor Ricardo, 1906 Haematopota unizonata Ricardo, 1906 Pangonia elongata Ricardo, 1908 Pangonia flavescens Ricardo, 1900 Pangonia semiviridis Ricardo, 1900Scione claripennis Ricardo, 1900 Scione flavohirta Ricardo, 1902 Scione fulva Ricardo, 1902 Scione ''fuscus Ricardo, 1900 Tabanus nigrohirtus Ricardo, 1900 Tabanus nyasae'' Ricardo, 1900Selected publications
1900: Notes on the Pangoninae of the Family Tabanidae in the British Museum Collection: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, series 7: volume 5: issue 25, pgs 98-121 and series 7: volume 5: issue 26, pgs 167–182.1900-1901: Notes on Diptera from South Africa : The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, series 7: volume 6: issue 32, pgs 161-178 and series 7: volume 7: issue 37, pgs 89-110
1900: Description of Five new Species of Pangoninae from South America: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, series 7: volume 6: issue 33, pgs 291-194
1901-1902: Further notes on the Pangoninae of the family Tabanidae in the British Museum collection: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Series 7: volume 8: pgs 286–315, Series 7: volume 9: pgs 366-381 and Series 7: volume 9 pgs 424–438.
1903: : Insecta: Diptera: in The Natural History of Sokotra and Abd-el-Kuri , ed. Forbes, Henry O., pgs 357-379
1905: Notes on the Tabani from the Palearctic Region in the British Museum Collection: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 7: volume 16: issue 92, pgs 196-202
1906: Notes on the genus Haematopota of the family Tabanidae in the British Museum collection: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 7: volume 18: issue 104, pgs 94-127
1908: Descriptions of some new Tabanidae, with notes on some Haematopota: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 8: volume : issue 1: pgs 54-60
1908: Descriptions of thirty new species of Tabani from Africa and Madagascar: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 8: volume 1: issue 3: pgs 268-278 and Series 8: volume 1: issue 4: pgs 311-333
1909: : Etude monographique des Tabanides d'Afrique : Paris, Masson et Cie, Éditeurs.
1909: Four new Tabanus Species from India and Assam: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 8: volume 3: issue 19: pgs 487-491
1910: A Revision of the Genus Pelecorhynchus of the Family Tabanidae: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 8: volume 5: issue 29: pgs 402-409
1911: A Revision of the Species of Tabanus from the Oriental Region, Including Notes on Species from Surrounding Countries: Records of the Indian Museum: Volume 4: pgs 111-255
1912-1914: A Revision of the Asilidae from Australasia: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 8: volume 9: issue 52: pgs 473–488, Series 8: volume 9: issue 53: pgs 585-594, Series 8: volume 10: issue 55: pgs 142–160, Series 8: volume 10: issue 57: pgs 350–360, Series 8: volume 11: issue 61: pgs 147-166
1915: Notes on the Tabanidae of the Australian Region: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 8: volume 14: issue 83: pgs 387–397, Series 8: volume 15: issue 87: pgs 270–291, Series 8: volume 16: issue 91: pgs 16-40 and Series 8: volume 16: issue 94: pgs 259-286
1917: New Species of Tabanidae from Australia and the Fiji Islands: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 8: volume 19: issue 110: pgs 207-224
1917: New Species of Haematopota from India: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 8: volume 19: issue 110: pgs 225-226
1918: Further Notes on the Asilidae of Australia: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 9: volume 1: issue 1: pgs 57-66
1919-1920: Notes on the Asilidae: Sub-division Asilinae: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 9: volume 3: pgs 44-79 and series 9: volume 5: issues 26, pgs 169-185
1921-1922: Notes on the Asilinae of the South African and Oriental regions: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 9: volume 8: issue 44, pgs 175-192 and Series 9: volume 10: issue 55, pgs 36-73
1925: New species of Asilidae from South Africa: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Series 9: volume 15: issue 86: pgs 234-282