JESO Volume 139, 2008 



IN MEMORIAM 



Edward Coulton Becker 

 1923 - 2008 



Dr. Edward Becker 



Dr. Ed Becker, Fellow of the Entomological 

 Society of Ontario, passed away on May 13, 2008 at 

 the age of 85. He was a research scientist at Agriculture 

 and Agri-Food Canada from 1952-1980, working as a 

 taxonomist at the Canadian National Collection (CNC) 

 of Insects, Arachnids and Nematodes in Ottawa. His 

 area of expertise was the systematics of click beetles 

 (Coleoptera: Elateridae), which include many Canadian 

 crop pest species. Following retirement, he became an 

 honourary research associate at the CNC and continued to 

 come into work nearly every day for the past 28 years. 



Ed was born on March 15, 1923 in St. Louis, 

 Missouri to Coulton and Grace Becker and was the first 

 of six children, and a twin. He spent his early years on 

 the family farm near Williamsville MO. After high school, he attended the University of 

 Missouri where he took three years of agricultural studies before joining the US Marine 

 Corps. After the war, Ed met Martha Mae Elliott at a church camp at Lake of the Ozarks 

 and they were married in 1948. The newly married couple soon moved to Honduras, where 

 Ed worked as an entomologist for the Standard Fruit Co. They returned and Ed attended the 

 University of Illinois, earning his PhD in entomology in 1952 with a thesis on the taxonomy 

 of Agriotes (Coleoptera: Elateridae). By good fortune, Agriculture Canada was looking 

 for a taxonomist to work on click beetles at the CNC and he and Martha soon moved to 

 Ottawa. 



Among his 36 systematics publications are monographic revisions of the large and 

 economically important click beetle genera Agriotes and Athous (Coleoptera: Elateridae) 

 of North America. This work was central to controlling a major North American crop pest 

 problem. Altogether, his work has been world-wide in scope, spans several beetle families, 

 and includes descriptions of 53 new species and two new genera. Towards the end of 

 his research career, Ed co-authored a series of major scientific articles with the Japanese 

 scientist Hitoo Ohira. Becker's systematic research was innovative, in that he wrote the 

 most rigorous, detailed descriptions and keys for Elateridae to date and pioneered new 

 unexplored morphological character systems. 



In addition to Ed's research, he was active in many entomological societies and 

 organizations, working as treasurer of the Entomological Society of Canada (1961-1985), 

 Section A representative and governing board member of the Entomological Society of 

 America (1982-1984), Editor of The Coleopterists Bulletin (1983-1990) and President of 

 the Coleopterists Society (1971-1972). Perhaps his biggest contribution to entomology 

 was through the CanaColl Foundation, a non-profit organization that Ed helped create and 

 almost single-handedly nurtured for the past 36 years. The foundation promotes taxonomic 



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