Philip Reese Uhler

Philip Reese Uhler (June 3, 1835 - October 21, 1913) was an American librarian and entomologist who specialized in Hemiptera, an insect order commonly known as true bugs. He was considered America's foremost expert on this group and was widely sought out for identification of species in this order.

Uhler was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of George Washington Uhler and Anna Reese Uhler. His father was a prosperous merchant and his great-grandfather, Erasmus Uhler, emigrated to America and served in the Revolutionary War. Uhler's private schooling provided a strong background in Latin and German. He attended Latin School in Baltimore and then Baltimore College.

Uhler's youthful interest in entomology started when he began collecting insects at the family farm near Reisterstown. His pursuit was encouraged by a family friend, John Gottlieb Morris, an amateur naturalist and the first librarian for the Peabody Institute. Although his father set him up in business, Uhler preferred to spend his time studying geology, botany, and entomology. One of his earliest papers was the Descriptions of a Few Species of Coleoptera Supposed to be New, published in 1856. In 1861 he published his first paper on the insect order, Hemiptera (true bugs), and most of his subsequent entomological papers focused almost entirely on this group. In 1861 he translated from Latin Hermann A. Hagen's Synopsis of Neuroptera of North America, issued by the Smithsonian Institution.

In 1862 Uhler was appointed assistant librarian at the Peabody, working under Morris. A short time later he began his studies at Harvard University as a student of Louis Agassiz. In 1864 Agassiz appointed Uhler to serve as both librarian at the Museum of Comparative Zoology and curator of the museum's substantial insect collections. At the same time Uhler taught entomology to Harvard undergraduates and gave a series of lectures at the museum. He also attended the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard and studied with some of the university's most notable scientists and naturalists including Asa Gray, Jeffries Wyman, Agassiz and Nathaniel Shaler.

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