Born in Bedford to an English mother and American father. Lived in Tokyo, Japan as a teen-ager, where he first began collecting insects, before moving to the USA. Dr. Ratcliffe is Curator of the Division of Entomology and Professor at the University of Nebraska State Museum in Lincoln Nebraska, USA. Where he specialises in the taxonomy, biology, ecology, phylogeny, and biogeography of scarab beetles, especially those of the Neotropics. His research interests centre on dynastine scarab beetles of the world and the New World gymnetines (Cetoniinae). He has conducted research and collected annually in Central and South America from 1974 to the present (2006), and lived in Amazonian Brazil working for the National Institute of Amazonian Research (INPA) from 1976-1978. He has published over 110 peer reviewed scientific papers and 5 books on scarab beetles. His lab, known as “Team Scarab”, is internationally known for its scarab research and student training. In view of this, the U.S. National Collection of Scarab Beetles was transferred to his lab from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. in 1999 for an extensive period of off-site enhancement. He interacts regularly with the staff and collections at the Natural History Museum in London in pursuit of his research. (Information from BCR) (MD 12/06)
Dates
18 March 1946 – Present