American Museum of Natural History Research Library
author: American Museum of Natural History

Cockerell, Theodore D. A. (Theodore Dru Alison), 1866-1948
birth: August 22, 1866
death: January 26, 1948
Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell was a zoologist specializing in entomology. Cockerell was born in England, and in 1891 was appointed curator of the public museum in Jamaica. In 1893 he transferred to New Mexico as professor of zoology, eventually settling in Boulder, Colo. Cockerell began identifying specimens of insects sent to him from the American Museum of Natural History, and became a research associate in the Dept. of Insects and Spiders. Seventy-five of his over 3,000 scientific articles were published as Bulletins of the AMNH or American Museum novitates, the majority of them on insects, primarily bees. Cockerell was an expert on bees of the Rocky Mountains region, but pursued many other zoological interests, especially mollusks, and also including botany, ichthyology and paleontology. He led or participated in a number of collecting expeditions all over the world, accompanied by his wife, Wilmatte, who also collaborated in his research.