Edward Bagnall Poulton

---

• Entomologist and Darwinian, friend of Wallace's.
• 
  
• "The Colours of Animals" (1890); invented the term "aposematism".  Realized that selection on camouflage would stabilize polymorphism -- first recognition of frequency-dependent selection.
• 
  
• Presidential address to the Entomological Society of London, Jan 1904: "What is a species?" (published in Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond. 1903 (1904)).  Suggested that interbreeding ("syngamy") was the true nature of species. Invented the term "sympatric".  See also "Poulton, Wallace and Jordan: how discoveries in Papilio butterflies initiated a new species concept 100 years ago"
• 
  
• "Essays on Evolution" (1908).
• 
  
• Published many papers on mimicry and evolution well into the 1930s.

---

Back to Portraits
Back to Jim Mallet Home Page