Eighteenth-century West African insects in the Macleay Museum, University of Sydney

Abstract

Henry Smeathman (1742–1786), best known for his essay on the west African termites, travelled to Sierra Leone in 1771 to collect naturalia for a group of wealthy sponsors. One of these sponsors, Dru Drury (1724–1803), was keen on African insects. Drury later described and illustrated many of these in the third volume of his Illustrations of natural history (1782). Two years after Drury died, his collection was auctioned in London. A key purchaser at this sale was Alexander Macleay (1767–1848), later appointed Colonial Secretary to New South Wales. His insects travelled with him to Sydney and are now in the Macleay Museum, University of Sydney. A number of these insects, collected by Smeathman and despatched from Sierra Leone, appear to be extant in the Macleay Museum. Chief of our discoveries is the type specimen for Goliathus drurii originally figured by Drury in Illustrations of natural history, volume 3, plate XL (1782). By matching other extant insects to the text and illustrations in the same volume we believe we have found type specimens for Scarabaeus torquata Drury, 1782 , and Papilio antimachus Drury, 1782 .