SKIDMORE, Peter

Primarily known for his work on Diptera and, later, sub-fossil insects, but in his role as Keeper of Natural Sciences at Doncater Museum he inevitably came into contact with Coleoptera. His AIDCAP book Insects of the Cow-Dung Community, 1991, contains very useful keys and illustrations to many Coleoptera. Colin Johnson records in his long and detailed obituary (including a portrait and a bibliography listing 148 published papers and books, and 99 unpublished reports) in EMM, 148, 2012, 63-79, that Skidmore found seven beetles new to Britain including Epiphanus cornutus  Esch. from Chedworth, Glos. in 1966, and Othius lapidicola Kies. from Scotland in 1988.  With Johnson he compiled and published 'A preliminary list of the Coleoptera of Merioneth, North Wales' in Ent. Gaz., 20, 1969, 139-225, which listed 1,150 species and was then the most comprehensive review of any Welsh County. With Johnson he also published his only new species to science, Ptinellodes hunteri, in 2005 from Malawi. Johnson named the Ptiliid genus Skidmorella after him from the Bismarck Islands.

There is another obituary by Howes, C., Limbert, M. & Buckland, P. 'Peter Skidmore BA, MPhil, PhD, FRES, FLS (1936-2009) Entomologist, Conservationist, Curator and Illustrator: a memorial tribute' in The Naturalist 2010 135(1073): 75-83 which includes a portrait and bibliography. See also Limbert M.  (2020) A consolidated list of titles by Peter Skidmore PhD, FRES, privately printed (pp.1-12) which includes a list of additional biographical sources. (MD 8/20, 9/22)

Dates: 

23 May 1936 - 19 July 2009