Frank Milburn Howlett

Frank Milburn Howlett (5 January 1877 – 20 August 1920) was a British entomologist who served as a Second Imperial Entomologist and as Imperial Pathological Entomologist in India. He specialized in insects (mainly Diptera - sandflies[1]) and parasitic ticks of medical and veterinary importance.[2] A major discovery by him was the attractant methyl eugenol and its effect on flies of the genus Bactrocera.

Howlett was born in Wymondham, Norfolk, the son of Francis John Howlett, a solicitor, and Mary Jane. He was educated at Wymondham Grammar School and Bury St Edmunds Grammar School,[3] and then at Christ's College, Cambridge. He was an assistant master at Edinburgh Academy from 1900-1903 and at Holt Grammar School before being posted as a professor of natural science (which included the teaching of chemistry) at Muir Central College, Allahabad, from 1904-1908, initially in a temporary position which was then extended.[4][5] He joined the Imperial Agricultural Research Institute at Pusa in 1907 as Second (ie deputy) Imperial Entomologist under Harold Maxwell-Lefroy and from 1912 as Imperial Pathological Entomologist for the Government of India. In 1910 he was in England and Harold Maxwell-Lefroy deputed him to attend the first International Entomological Congress in Brussels, where he presented on the state of economic entomology in India and also on issues in preserving specimens in India.[6] He left India during the First World War and worked with the Royal Army Medical College and returned in 1917. One of his most important findings was in noting the attraction of tephritid flies to methyl eugenol, a component that he identified from several others present in citronella oil.[7][8] Howlett later moved to the Agricultural Research Institute at Pune. Howlett was also an athlete and artist but his health was poor during his service in India and he died a premature death following a surgical procedure at Mussoorie.[9][10][11]

He assisted Harold Maxwell-Lefroy in writing and illustrating the book Indian Insect Life. He wrote the sections on the flies and also trained staff at Pusa in technical illustration.[12] A species of tick, Haemaphysalis howletti, was described by Warburton in 1913 from a pony in Pakistan and in 1962 was found on rodents and birds in Pune, Maharashtra.[13] Howlett developed techniques for collecting and preserving insects[14] and for marking insects (houseflies) to study dispersal.[15] Brunetti, named a fly after Howlett as Howlettia (now considered a synonym of Platypalpus Macquart, 1827 of family Hybotidae[16]).[17]