Alpheus Spring Packard Jr. LL.D. (February 19, 1839 – February 14, 1905) was an American entomologist and palaeontologist. He described over 500 new animal species – especially butterflies and moths – and was one of the founders of The American Naturalist.[1]
His chief work was the classification and anatomy of arthropods, and contributions to economic entomology, zoogeography, and the phylogeny and metamorphoses of insects. Packard was appointed to the United States Entomological Commission in 1877 where he served with Charles Valentine Riley and Cyrus Thomas.[3] He wrote school textbooks, such as Zoölogy for High Schools and Colleges (eleventh edition, 1904). His Monograph of the Bombycine Moths of North America was published in three parts (1895, 1905, 1915, edited by T. D. A. Cockerell).
He married Elizabeth Darby Walcott, daughter of Samuel B. Walcott in October 1867 in Salem, Massachusetts.[5][6][7] They would have four children: Martha Walcott,
Alpheus Appleton, Elizabeth Darby, and Frances Elizabeth.[8][7] Elizabeth Darby would die at the age of eight.[7] He died on February 14, 1905, in Providence, Rhode Island, with his wife and children outliving him.[9]
Report on the insects collected on the Penobscot and Alleguash Rivers, during August and September, 1861, Sixth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Maine Board of Agriculture, Augusta, Maine (pp. 373-376) (1861)
Guide to the Study of Insects (1869; third edition, 1872)
Mead, A. D. (1918). "Alpheus Spring Packard (1839-1905)". Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 53 (10): 848–850. JSTOR25130026.
Sorenson, W. Conner (1995). Brethren of the Net: American Entomologists, 1840-1880. University of Alabama Press.
Sterling, Keir B., ed. (1997). "Packard, Alpheus Spring Jr.". Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists. Greenwood Press.
