John S. Clark

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John S. Clark
Born(1885-03-21)21 March 1885
Victoria
NationalityScottish
CitizenshipAustralian
Known forContributions to myrmecology
Spouses
Maggie Forbes
​
​
(m. 1908; died 1935)​
Phyllis Marjorie Claringbull
​
​
(m. 1939; died 1943)​
Children6
Scientific career
Fields
  • Museum Victoria

John S. Clark (21 March 1885 – 1 June 1956) was a Scottish-born Australian entomologist and myrmecologist known for his study of Australian ants. Born in Glasgow, he developed an interest in entomology at a young age. Clark first arrived in Australia in 1905 and originally worked for the state railways in Queensland. He developed an interest in ants shortly afterwards, collecting his first specimens in North Queensland. He married his first wife, Maggie Forbes in 1908, who bore four children, and died in 1935. He married his second wife, Phyllis Marjorie Claringbulls in 1939 and had two daughters with her. On her suicide in 1943, Clark sent his daughters to an orphanage.

In 1919, Clark worked as the assistant to the entomologist on probation in the Western Australian Department of Agriculture, but in 1920, he took on this position full-time. He started to publish his first articles about pest insects and ants from 1921; in 1926 he became an entomologist at the

Victoria in 1944. Living in poverty, Clark lived a reclusive life, publishing his last book in 1951. He died on 1 June 1956 at the age of 71, survived by his six children. One of Clark's most notable achievements was describing Nothomyrmecia macrops, the most primitive
living ant. Several ants have been named after him in recognition of his contributions.

Early life

Glasgow, where Clark was born

John S. Clark was born on 21 March 1885 in Glasgow, Scotland, to parents James Souttar Clark, a coach-painter, and Maggie Clark (née Scott).[1][2][3] At an early age, Clark had an interest in entomology throughout his years in Glasgow and adult life in Australia.[2] Clark migrated to Australia in 1905 with little formal education but found himself working for the state railways in Queensland. There, he found an interest in ants and made his first collection of specimens in North Queensland.[1] In May 1908, Clark married his first wife, Maggie Forbes, at the Cairns Presbyterian Church. After their marriage, they moved to Geraldton in Western Australia, where Clark worked for the railways as a wheelwright. He had one son and three daughters with Forbes; Forbes later died from heart disease in 1935.[1]

Career

Australian entomologist

Victoria for nearly 20 years.[1][2] In 1933, Clark sold 8,000 ant specimens he collected to the museum for about £200.[1]

Following the death of his first wife in 1935, Clark moved from

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation through grants. His first volume was published in 1951, which covered the Australian bulldog ants (subfamily Myrmeciinae). However, the first volume received poor reviews, and no further volume was released. In fact, it is unknown whether or not any further volume will be released.[1][2]

Research

Nothomyrmecia was described by Clark in 1934, and is considered to be the most primitive ant alive

Aside from some papers published discussing myrmecophilous beetles and insect pests in forests, Clark predominately researched and published articles about the taxonomy of Australian ants.[2] All of his articles and monographs were published in Australia. Throughout his career, Clark described around 200 different species of ants, but half of these may be synonyms. He worked and researched with all of the main groups of Australian ants, but his research and revisionary efforts were extensive with members of the former subfamily Cerapachyinae (now Dorylinae), especially those of Phyracaces, the Myrmeciinae, Rhytidoponera and members of the tribe Dolichoderini.[2]

Clark is most notable for describing the dinosaur ant (Nothomyrmecia macrops), which is the most primitive living ant in the world and second most primitive when the fossil record is included.[2][4] The first collection of Nothomyrmecia was made in December 1931 by Amy Crocker[a] who collected specimens of two worker ants, reportedly near the Russell Range from Israelite Bay in Western Australia.[5] Crocker sent the two specimens to Clark at the museum for study; in 1934, Clark published a formal description of Nothomyrmecia as a completely new genus of the Myrmeciinae.[5][6] He did so because the two specimens (which then became the syntypes) bore no resemblance to any ant species he knew of, although they did share similar morphological characteristics with the extinct genus Prionomyrmex.[5] This unusual ant remained unknown to scientists, causing intense scientific interest in the early 1950s. Over three decades, however, teams of Australian and American collectors failed to re-find it after they initiated a series of searches. Then, in 1977, entomologist Robert Taylor and his party of entomologists from Canberra found a solitary worker ant at Poochera, southeast of Ceduna, some 1,300 km (810 mi) from the reported site of the 1931 discovery.[7][8][9] After 46 years of searching for it, entomologists have dubbed the ant the "Holy Grail" of myrmecology.[4][10] Such discovery of Nothomyrmecia and its general nature marks it as one of Clark's most notable achievements.[2]

Death and recognition

Clark died at his Mooroolbark home on 1 June 1956, at the age of 71. American entomologist William Brown Jr. notes that Clark was living the life of a "

Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. As well as that, she worked for the Argus and Australasian and published papers on influenza virus research and crustaceans.[1]

A number of ants have been named after Clark. The holotype of Polyrhachis clarki was originally collected by Clark, but it was not described until 2013. There, the author of the article named the ant after him.[11] Leptogenys clarki is another ant named after Clark for his contributions towards Australian ants, being described by American entomologist William Morton Wheeler in 1933.[12] Ants he collected that bear his name include Dolichoderus clarki,[13] Plagiolepis clarki[14] and Stigmacros clarki.[15]

Published works

Over the course of his career, Clark published over 35 entomological papers.[1][16] The following publications are found at the Hymenoptera Online Database:[17]

Books

  • Clark, J.S. (1951). The Formicidae of Australia (Volume 1). Subfamily Myrmeciinae (PDF). Melbourne, Victoria: CSIRO Publishing. pp. 1–230.

Journals

Notes

  1. ^ Referred to as Miss. A. E. Baesjou in Clark's article.

References

  1. ^
    ISSN 1833-7538. Archived
    from the original on 20 November 2015. Retrieved 20 November 2015.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Brown, W.L. Jr. (1956). "John Clark" (PDF). Entomological News. 67 (8): 197–199.
  3. ^
    S2CID 3947767. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help
    )
  4. ^ a b "CSIRO team finds world's most primitive ant". The Canberra Times. Canberra, ACT: National Library of Australia. 18 November 1977. p. 3. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
  5. ^
    doi:10.5281/zenodo.26629
    .
  6. ^ Serventy, V. (17 March 1955). "A Touch of Nature". Narrogin Observer. Narrogin, WA: National Library of Australia. p. 13. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
  7. S2CID 22673165
    .
  8. ^ Brown, W.L. Jr.; Wilson, E.O. (1959). "The search for Nothomyrmecia" (PDF). Western Australian Naturalist. 7 (2): 25–30. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 November 2015.
  9. PMID 11106367
    .
  10. ^ "'Dinosaur' that still lives". The Canberra Times. Canberra, ACT: National Library of Australia. 30 June 1982. p. 18. Retrieved 22 November 2015.
  11. ^ Kohout, R.J. (2013). "Revision of Polyrhachis (Hagiomyrma) Wheeler, 1911 (Insecta: Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Formicinae)" (PDF). Memoirs of the Queensland Museum. 56 (2): 487–577.
  12. OCLC 1411297
    .
  13. doi:10.1155/1935/17645
    .
  14. doi:10.5281/zenodo.25251
    .
  15. doi:10.5281/zenodo.25878
    .
  16. OCLC 37087568
    .
  17. ^ "John Clark". Hymenoptera Online Database. Retrieved 20 November 2015.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_S._Clark&oldid=1213427386"