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Post by Adam Cotton on May 26, 2018 23:02:43 GMT -8
I have received an e-mail from John Heppner informing me that:
"Tom Emmel died today in Brazil. He was on his way back to the US from Rondonia, supposed to get in last night, but the flight to Orlando was delayed waiting on fuel for jet, and airline had put all passengers up in a hotel last night. Tom was found dead in his hotel room, from apparently natural causes."
This is very sad news, as well as being one of the eminent US lepidopterists he was also founder of the McGuire Centre in Gainsville, Florida.
Adam.
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Post by nomihoudai on May 27, 2018 9:54:50 GMT -8
This is sad. I once had the pleasure to meet him in Florida.
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Post by coloradeo on May 27, 2018 12:50:22 GMT -8
I had the pleasure of meeting him at the 2016 LepSoc meeting field trips in Colorado a couple years back. It delightful meeting him! Sorry to hear.
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Post by trehopr1 on May 27, 2018 14:45:54 GMT -8
Dr. Emmel led a very full, productive, and accomplished life. We should all be so lucky. He has several books to his credit and many numerous papers on the subject of Lepidoptera. He played a big part in many planned trips to foreign lands so others could enjoy the experience of tropical collecting. He founded the McGuire Center in Florida which has one of the largest assemblages of worldwide lepidoptera.
I consider myself fortunate that I was able to go on 2 of his tropical (group) collecting trips; Ecuador (1988) and Bolivia (1989). He was a polite, softspoken gentleman on the trips I was on and a mentor to many collectors and students alike. A giant among modern Lepidopterists that we have lost... Rest in Peace kind sir !
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Post by exoticimports on May 27, 2018 16:22:41 GMT -8
The lep world lost an emissary to the people.
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Post by africaone on May 27, 2018 22:29:42 GMT -8
that made me back more than 25 years ago when I discovered him in the first issues of Tropical Lepidoptera. I never forget an impressive collecting trip paper on Taiwan. These journal influenced me on interests I never imagined before such as Choreutidae and Brachodidae (<Heppner) that I started to breed in Africa and.
He appeared to me as a kind of ET that knew everything on Lepidoptera.
A great loss for our community.
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Post by vabrou on May 29, 2018 15:20:38 GMT -8
He was only here three months ago visiting me. February 7, 2018 -in photo Dr. TomEmmel (left) is founding director of the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity at the Florida Museum of Natural History, located in Gainesville, Florida, and on (right) is Vernon Brou holding a box of Eudocimamoths just removed from the pinning boards and out of the drying oven. Behind the camera was Marie Emmerson, Senior Director of Development Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida. Both visited the research collection of about 400,000 mostly moths of Louisiana. And, we discussed 'bugs' as we went through several hundreds of Cornell drawers. All of us (Tom, Marie, Vernon, and Charlotte) had a great local cuisine lunch where we talked about more bugs and bug trap methods.  |
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Post by exoticimports on May 30, 2018 2:21:41 GMT -8
Great photo Vernon.
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Post by papilio28570 on Aug 4, 2018 23:28:44 GMT -8
I too met Tom at a Southern Leps conference in Florida but that was many years ago. Sad news indeed. We have lost quite a few Giants in the Lepidoptera world in recent years. Our mentor generation is passing on but their work will be around for a very long time. Rest in peace to all of them. You are not dead until you are forgotten.
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