Carl Robert Osten-Sacken

Carl Robert Osten-Sacken was born on 21 August 1828 in St. Petersburg as the son of Baltic German Baron Reinhold Friedrich von der Osten-Sacken (1791-1864) and his wife, Elisabeth von Engelhardt (1805-1873).{{CN|date=October 2022}}

He took an interest in insects at the age of eleven through the influence of Joseph N. Schatiloff, a Russian coleopterist.Alexander 1969 In 1849 he joined the Imperial Foreign Office and while still in Russia he published his first entomological papers, including an account of the species found in the suburbs of St. Petersburg.Sterling 2000

In 1856, he was sent to Washington, D.C. to serve as secretary of the Russian legation. During his two-month trip to America, he visited some of Europe’s leading entomologists, including Hermann August Hagen, then living in Konigsberg. In the mid-1860s Osten Sacken helped Hagen secure a position at Harvard, where he became the first entomologist in the United States to hold the formal title, Professor of Entomology. In 1862 Osten Sacken was named the Russian consul general in New York City, a post he held until 1871.Sterling 2000

He developed an early interest in entomology specialising in Diptera and especially the Tipulidae. In 1862 Osten-Sacken published, with assistance from Hermann Loew, “Catalogue of the described Diptera of North America” in Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 3. A later edition of this work appeared in 1878, as Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, No. 270. He published many other papers. His work on the Tipulidae included a classification of the family. He also studied insect galls and worked on the Tabanidae. Osten-Sacken corresponded with Hermann Loew, supplying him with specimens, and translated and published Loew's work in the "Monographs of the Diptera of North America", (1862-1873), Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Nos. 6, 171, 219, 256. He proposed the term chaetotaxy.{{cite journal|author=Osten-Sacken CR|title=An Essay on Comparative Chætotaxy, or the arrangement of characteristic bristles of Diptera|journal=Transactions of the Entomological Society of London|year=1884 |volume=1884|pages=497–517|url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/51064#page/527/mode/1up |access-date=January 19, 2013}}Osten-Sacken 1903

Asteroid 335 Roberta was named in his honor.{{cite book | doi=10.1007/978-3-540-29925-7_336 | chapter=(335) Roberta | title=Dictionary of Minor Planet Names | year=2007 | page=43 | isbn=978-3-540-00238-3 }} A subspecies of North American snake, Thamnophis sauritus sackenii, was named in his honour by Robert Kennicott in 1859.Beolens B, Watkins M, Grayson M (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. {{ISBN|978-1-4214-0135-5}}. ("Osten-Sacken", p. 197). The cynipid gall wasp Amphibolips quercusostensackenii {{small|Bassett, 1863}} is named in his honour.{{cn|date=September 2021}} Sacken's velvet ant was named for him in 1865.{{Cite web |title=Species Dasymutilla sackenii - Sacken's Velvet Ant |url=https://bugguide.net/node/view/13124 |access-date=2024-10-13 |website=bugguide.net |language=en}}

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• {{cite journal| author=Alexander CP| title=Baron Osten Sacken and his Influence on American Dipterology|journal=Annual Review of Entomology|volume=14|pages=1–19|year=1969|doi=10.1146/annurev.en.14.010169.000245| url=https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/part/20889}}
• {{cite book|last1=Essig|first1=E. O.|title=A History of Entomology|date=1931|publisher=MacMillan Company|pages=724–727}}
• {{cite book|last1=Mallis|first1=Arnold|title=American Entomologists|date=1971|publisher=Rutgers University Press|pages=381–384}}
• {{cite book| title=Record of My Life-work in Entomology|author=Osten-Sacken CR|year=1903|publisher=Self published. 240 pp.|place=Cambridge, Massachusetts|url=https://archive.org/details/recordofmylifewo00oste}}
• {{Cite book|last=Sterling|first=Keir B.|url=https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1301249 |title=Osten Sacken, Carl Robert Romanovich von der (1828-1906)|date=2000|publisher=Oxford University Press|series=American National Biography Online|doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1301249 }}

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• [http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/collections-library/collections-management/collections-navigator/ Manuscript collection at the Natural History Museum (London)]

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Category:1828 births

Category:1906 deaths

Category:Diplomats from Saint Petersburg

Category:Dipterists

Category:Baltic-German people from the Russian Empire

Category:Entomologists from the Russian Empire

Category:Diplomats of the Russian Empire

Category:People of New York (state) in the American Civil War

Category:Barons of the Russian Empire

Category:Scientists from Saint Petersburg

Category:Consuls for the Russian Empire

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