Dear colleagues,

It is a sad day for all simuliidologists. I have to inform you that our well loved friend Roger Crosskey, passed away at about midday BST today 4 September. He had been in hospital for the last few months.

Roger was an exceptional taxonomist and an inspiration to us all, and a good friend to many. His knowledge of the subject was unsurpassed.

Sadly,

John Davies

Dear all,

Sadly, former member of NHM staff and entomologist Roger W. Crosskey passed away yesterday after a brief period in hospital.

He will be remembered for his outstanding contributions to dipterology, most notably on the biosystematics of Simuliidae and Tachinidae but also of other calyptrate families such as the Muscidae, Rhinophoridae and Calliphoridae. His works include several large monographs published in the Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) such as the taxonomic conspectuses of Oriental and Australasian tachinids. He was editor-in-chief of the Afrotropical Diptera Catalogue and contributed chapters to the Afrotropical, Australasian and Oriental regional catalogues, which are still widely in use by the scientific community today, and is author of the cornerstone book on simuliids, “The Natural History of Blackflies”. He was a respected biogeographer and a member of the management committee for the International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature.

Roger began his career as a medical entomologist for the Nigerian Ministry of Health (1951-1958), then worked for the Commonwealth Institute of Entomology (1959-1972) before joining the Natural History Museum. He started as head of the Hymenoptera section, then moved to Diptera as head of section before being promoted to Senior Principal Scientific Officer and spending his last years purely on research. He retired in 1990 but remained as a Scientific Associate until 2016.

He will be warmly remembered by former colleagues and friends and by all of those who are familiar with his scientific legacy.

Daniel

Dr Daniel Whitmore
Senior Curator
(Diptera & Siphonaptera)
Department of Life Sciences
Natural History Museum


Note: Roger was born in 1930 (Paul)

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