George Henry Falkiner Nuttall and the 

 Nuttall Tick Catalogue 



by James E. Keiransi/ 



From the turn of the century until his 

 death in 1937, George H. F. Nuttall 

 amassed what at the time was the world's 

 largest tick collection. This collection 

 was the basis for monographic revisions 

 of the genera Argas and Ornithodoros 

 (1908), Ixodes (1911), Haemaphysalis 

 (1915), and Amblyomma (1926). These 

 works are still consulted by specialists 

 and, although outdated, the Amblyomma 

 revision remains the best published work 

 on that genus. 



Nuttall was in a unique position with 

 regard to the collection of ticks. He 

 personally collected, but that was a 

 secondary source of material. As Direc- 

 tor of the Molteno Institute for Researcn 

 in Parasitology, Cambridge University, he 

 had access to collections by present and 

 former students and corresponded with 

 parasitologists throughout the world. 

 He also exchanged tick specimens with 

 most of the leading tick workers of the 

 day, including L. G. Neumann, W. Donitz, 

 H. de B. Aragao, E. Brumpt, and R. A. 

 Cooley. Readers of the scientific publi- 

 cations "Parasitology" and the "Journal 

 of Hygiene," both of which he edited, 

 v/ere acquainted with his numerous publi- 

 cations on ticks and sent him samples 

 for identification. More importantly, 

 this was the era of the greatest expan- 

 sion of the British Colonial Empire and 

 the time of the formation of the Entomo- 

 logical Research Committee (Tropical 

 Africa), later expanded to the Imperial 



Bureau of Entomology 

 wealth Institute of 

 committee began the 

 collection and study 

 other arthropods inj 

 animals, and crops i 

 1909; Shipley, 1910) 

 member of this commi 

 sible for all tick i 



and now the Common- 

 Entomology. This 

 first systematic 



of insects and 

 urious to man, 

 n Africa (Anon. , 

 . Nuttall was a 

 ttee and was respon- 

 dentifi cations. 



However, all this access to huge tick 

 collections would have been in vain had 

 it not been for Nuttall' s meticulous 

 recordkeeping. Each collection received 

 a Nuttall number, and all data were put 

 on labels kept with the ticks in alcohol; 

 numerically, the data were entered in 

 his tick catalogue. The large number of 

 ticks from collectors throughout the 

 world, combined with Nuttall 's detailed 

 accurate recordkeeping and his taxonomic 

 expertise, led to a tick collection 

 unrivaled in its day. 



After Nuttall 's death in 1937, Cambriage 

 University presented his tick collection 

 to the British Museum (Nat. Hist.) with 

 the single stipulation that it remain a 

 separate entity as--The Nuttall Tick 

 Col lection --and not be incorporated into 

 the general collection. Various investi- 

 gators have studied parts of Nuttall's 

 collection when they pertained to species 

 groups in which they had an interest, 

 but the entire collection has never been 

 revised and updated. Since his death, 

 taxonomic concepts have changed within 

 the Ixodoidea and their numerous verte- 

 brate hosts. In addition, the emergence 

 of scores of new nations, especially in 

 the post-World War II period, requires 

 an updating of all locality data asso- 

 ciated with the Nuttall collection. 



y Research entomologist (medical). 

 Department of Health and Human Services 

 (HHS), Public Health Service, National 

 Institutes of Health, National Institute 

 of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, 

 Epidemiology Branch, Rocky Mountain 

 Laboratories, Hamilton, Mont. 59840; now 

 in HHS, Entomology Department, National 

 Museum of Natural History, Museum 

 Support Center, Smithsonian Institution, 

 Washington, D.C, 20560, 



