Remington, Charles Lee

▪ 2008

      American entomologist

born Jan. 19, 1922, Reedville, Va.

died May 31, 2007, Hamden, Conn.

spent his entire career, beginning in 1948, at Yale University, where he instilled in students his passion for butterflies and moths and established one of the nation's premier collections of specimens (numbering more than 2.5 million) as curator of Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History. While pursuing graduate studies at Harvard University (Ph.D., 1948), Remington and fellow graduate student Harry K. Clench founded (1947) the Lepidopterists' Society; by 2007 the scientific organization's membership had swelled to 10,000 in 60 countries. During World War II, Remington served as a medical entomologist, researching insectborne epidemics in the Pacific and scrutinizing bites inflicted on servicemen. This experience led to a lifelong fascination with island biology; he went on to visit more than 75 islands worldwide. His research also extended to evolutionary studies, and his theory that different species of animals or plants hybridized at a specific geographic region, which he called suture zones, continued to be debated by scientists. Remington established the first nature preserve for the Magicicada, near his home in Hamden, and in 1996 he captivated television audiences with his entertaining and educational stories about this cicada, which emerges by the millions every 17 years. Remington was also a founder of Zero Population Growth, an organization that espoused limiting population growth.

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