A Long Pupation: Fritz van Emden’s larvae, and the handbook to the larvae of the British beetle families

Fritz Isidor van Emden (1898-1958) was a Dutch-born entomologist with a particular interest in Coleoptera larvae, who migrated to Britain from Germany in 1936 with his family and collection.  After his death, his son, the prominent agricultural entomologist Helmut van Emden, passed the extensive larval collection to the Natural History Museum, London, with the proviso that it be used to produce a handbook for the identification of the larvae of British beetle families. In the ensuing 56 years, the task of producing this book (as they say in India about money) passed from hand to hand without ever getting warmer, until in 2012 NHM curator Beulah Garner gave a presentation on the collection at a larval symposium in Prague, and was promptly handed the task of completing it along with a pile of manuscript materials.

We will discuss how she and I have updated the taxonomy and life history of all taxa, supplemented the several hundred line drawings with colour photographs, and brought the disparate manuscripts together into a cohesive whole, which is now close to completion.

A large proportion of entomologists are guilty of ignoring immature stages, even though many species spend most of their lives as larvae. This attitude may at least partly be a result of too few identification resources, a need recognised by van Emden a lifetime ago. Of the 103 families of Coleoptera present in the British Isles, all except five (Phloiophilidae, Hygrobiidae, Sphercheidae, Drilidae and Alexiidae) also occur in the United States. The forthcoming handbook is therefore likely to be of use and interest beyond our shores.