Joseph Charles Bequaert 
This issue of Psyche is dedicated to the memory of Joseph C. 
Bequaert, who died in his 96th year in Amherst, Massachusetts, on 
January 12, 1982. 
Dr. Bequaert was born in Belgium in 1886 and was educated 
there, receiving his Dr. Phil, degree in botany in 1908 from the State 
University in Ghent. The next seven years he spent in the Belgian 
Congo (now Zaire), at first as Entomologist on the Belgian Sleeping 
Sickness Commission and later as head of botanical explorations in 
the Congo for the Belgian Colonial Government. During those 
years his main interest shifted from botany to entomology, in which 
he subsequently did the greater part of his research and teaching. In 
1917 he was appointed Research Associate in Congo Zoology at the 
American Museum of Natural History. Six years later, after becom- 
ing a naturalized citizen of the United States, he joined the faculties 
of the Harvard School of Public Health and the Harvard Medical 
School, as an assistant professor in medical entomology, and 
remained there until 1945. He then accepted the position of Curator 
of Recent Insects in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, succeed- 
ing Nathan Banks. In 1951 he was appointed Alexander Agassiz 
Professor of Zoology, a chair that he held until his retirement in 
1956. Most of the remaining 26 years of his life were spent in Tuc- 
son, Arizona, where he was associated with the departments of 
entomology and zoology at the University of Arizona. 
He was internationally known for his publications, totalling more 
than 250, on medical entomology, mollusks, botany, and systemat- 
ics of several families of insects. 
Joe joined the Cambridge Entomological Club in 1923, as soon as 
he reached the Boston area, and he was very active in the society for 
the next 33 years. He was president in 1928, 1935-36, and 1942-43; 
vice-president in 1937, 1941, and 1946; secretary in 1925 and 1926; 
and treasurer in 1943. He also served on the editorial board of 
Psyche from 1947-1956. He gave many of the scheduled talks at our 
regular meetings and was chosen as the speaker for the 500th meet- 
ing of the Club on December 15, 1931. In recognition of his services 
and contributions to the activities of the society, he was elected an 
Honorary Member in 1961. 
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