Brian Hocking

Brian Hocking (22 September 1914 – 23 May 1974) was a Canadian entomologist known for his work in medical entomology on blood-sucking flies, particularly black-flies and mosquitoes. He was also a specialist in insect host detection and flight. He was also the author of several popular books dealing with biology and entomology.

Biography Hocking was born in London, and after a B.Sc. from the Imperial College, he worked for some time as an entomologist in the British Indian Army posted in Lucknow during World War II. He joined the University of Alberta in 1946, completing his master's degree and a Ph.D. (1953) from the Imperial College with a thesis on The intrinsic range and speed of the flight of insects before becoming a faculty member, a position he kept for the rest of his life. He was a keen educator, and made numerous TV and radio programs, apart from helping develop the curriculum of Edmonton schools. He received a Gold Medal from the Entomological Society of Canada in 1973. In a review, he wrote that most of the literature on mosquitoes was on Aedes and Culex and that these were unrepresentative of the mosquitoes. He also worked on flight and its efficiency in insects. Hocking also made studies on insects and their associations with the African thorn acacias. He founded a newsletter called Quaestiones Entomologicae. He worked on entomology even during his last days as a cancer patient.