William L. Downes, Jr took an early interest in flesh flies and graduated from Michigan State University
with a Master's thesis on the morphology and classification of the Sarcophagidae and other calyptrates
(published 1955). He continued with a PhD on "The Nearctic Miltogramminae and certain allies",
which was successfully defended in 1958, but apart from the dissertation abstract
published the same year, no papers materialised from this otherwise extensive and thorough work.
Bill had a unique eye for species, and his knowledge on the Nearctic, and in his later
years also on the Neotropical flesh fly fauna was outstanding. So much more surprising that he only
described one single flesh fly species (plus one blow fly) during his entire life. A major obstacle
most probably was his sense for details and a desire to produce comprehensive treatments. This
(combined with the lack of institutional support) was a major barrier from a prolific output, and
Bill Downes only published eleven papers, but with topics spanning from behaviour and evolution to
taxonomy and morphology, and most of them exclusively on flesh flies.
Bill spent considerable time collecting in Costa Rica after his retirement, and his large collection
of New World flesh flies plus a life-long production of field notes and taxonomic keys
are now with Greg Dahlem. Bill was early out in compiling annotated references on flesh flies
on his personal computer, and these form the backbone of the online flesh fly bibliography found on these
webpages. My first correspondence with Bill dates back to 27 December 1984,
when I was starting revisionary work on Neotropical Metopia, but I did not meet him until ten years later,
at the Diptera congress in Guelph 1994.
During his last years he became still more interested in scientific methodology in general
and in how to elucidate 'true' phylogenetic relationships. With a decidedly non-cladistic approach,
he relied on his natural talent for detecting characters and morphological patterns, which very often was
combined with his extensive observations of fly behaviour and appearance in the field.
Bill was strongly opposed to the fine splitting of genera favoured by workers like Townsend and Souza Lopes,
and much of my current classification grew out of his ideas of functionality and usefulness of genera.
William L. Downes, Jr took an early interest in flesh flies and graduated from Michigan State University
with a Master's thesis on the morphology and classification of the Sarcophagidae and other calyptrates
(published 1955). He continued with a PhD on "The Nearctic Miltogramminae and certain allies",
which was successfully defended in 1958, but apart from the dissertation abstract
published the same year, no papers materialised from this otherwise extensive and thorough work.
Bill had a unique eye for species, and his knowledge on the Nearctic, and in his later
years also on the Neotropical flesh fly fauna was outstanding. So much more surprising that he only
described one single flesh fly species (plus one blow fly) during his entire life. A major obstacle
most probably was his sense for details and a desire to produce comprehensive treatments. This
(combined with the lack of institutional support) was a major barrier from a prolific output, and
Bill Downes only published eleven papers, but with topics spanning from behaviour and evolution to
taxonomy and morphology, and most of them exclusively on flesh flies.
Bill spent considerable time collecting in Costa Rica after his retirement, and his large collection
of New World flesh flies plus a life-long production of field notes and taxonomic keys
are now with Greg Dahlem. Bill was early out in compiling annotated references on flesh flies
on his personal computer, and these form the backbone of the online flesh fly bibliography found on these
webpages. My first correspondence with Bill dates back to 27 December 1984,
when I was starting revisionary work on Neotropical Metopia, but I did not meet him until ten years later,
at the Diptera congress in Guelph 1994.