Cartwright, Oscar L.

Biographical History

Oscar L. Cartwright (1900-1983) was a coleopterist and specialist on the biology and taxonomy of scarab beetles. He was educated at Allegheny College (B.S., 1923) and Ohio State University (M.S., 1925). In 1925, Cartwright was appointed Assistant Entomologist at the South Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station at Clemson College. He remained at Clemson until 1948, except for the years 1945-1946 when he was employed by the United States Public Health Service to study mosquito and rat borne diseases in South Carolina and Tennessee. In 1948, Cartwright was appointed Associate Curator in the Division of Insects, United States National Museum (USNM). When the Department of Entomology was created in 1963, as part of a reorganization of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), Cartwright was appointed Curator and supervisor of the Division of Coleoptera. After his retirement in 1970, Cartwright continued his research as an Emeritus Entomologist at NMNH Cartwright was an authority on Western Hemisphere Aphodiinae, a subfamily of scarab beetles. He conducted field work in the southeastern United States, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Bahama Islands. His bibliography included over 80 titles in which 132 new taxa were described. Seventeen beetles were named in his honor.

Related entities

• United States National Museum: Cartwright was appointed Associate Curator in the Division of Insects, United States National Museum (USNM).
• National Museum of Natural History (U.S.): Cartwright was appointed Curator and supervisor of the Division of Coleoptera, NMNH.
• South Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station: Cartwright was Assistant Entomologist at the South Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station at Clemson College.

Birth Date

1900

Death Date

1983

Topic

Entomologists

Form/Genre

Personal name

Occupation

Entomologists