BODENHEIMER, FREDERICK SIMON

BODENHEIMER, FREDERICK SIMON (1897–1959), Israel zoologist. The son of Max Isidor *Bodenheimer, he was born in Cologne, and completed his studies in biology at Bonn in 1921. In 1922 he was appointed entomologist in the new agricultural experimental station of the Jewish Agency in Tel Aviv, where he worked until 1928. In 1927 Bodenheimer carried out an expedition to the Sinai Peninsula. Important among the results of this expedition was his identification of the biblical manna as the honeydew excretion of scale-insects on tamarisk. In 1928 he was appointed research fellow and in 1931 professor of zoology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. From 1938 to 1941 he was visiting professor at Ankara and consultant to the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture. In 1943 he was invited to Iraq to serve as entomological adviser on locust control. In addition to his specialty of agricultural entomology, Bodenheimer's broader biological interests were animal ecology, population dynamics, and the history of science. He was the author of many articles and numerous books, including Die Schaedlingsfauna Palaestinas (1930); Materialien zur Geschichte der Entomologie bis Linné (2 vols., 1928–29); Animal Life in Palestine (1935); Problems of Animal Ecology (1938); Animal and Man in Bible Lands (1960); Citrus Entomology in the Middle East… (1951); The History of Biology: an Introduction (1958); and Animal Ecology Today (1958). His last book, A Biologist in Israel (1959), is an autobiography.

[Mordecai L. Gabriel]