Jay Traver

Jay R Trave (Her middle name is identical to her father's; it is an 'R' with no trailing period.) was an American entomologist who studied and published about mayflies. She described over 200 new species and contributed to the reorganization of the systematics of the entire order. She has been called "the first Ephemeroptera specialist in North America". With a Carnegie grant from 1931 to 1937,

In the summer of 1938, she worked briefly as a field secretary for the conservation department of the Biological Survey of New York, moving that same summer to become a zoology instructor at Massachusetts State College. She worked there for the rest of her career; in 1960, she became a full professor.

Death and legacy

Traver was diagnosed with abdominal cancer in 1971. On her death in 1974, the entomologists and mayfly specialists William L. Peters and Janice Peters dedicated an issue of Florida A&M University's Eatonia journal to her, describing her as "the first Ephemeroptera specialist in North America". The issue lists 45 publications by Traver: most are on mayfly systematics, describing new species or documenting the mayflies of a region. She wrote on the mayflies of North America, the Himalayas, Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

Delusional parasitosis

In 1951, Traver published a paper titled "Unusual Scalp Dermatitis in Humans Caused by the Mite, Dermatophagoides (Acarina, epidermoptidae)" summarizing her personal experience. The paper – her only one not about mayflies She visited numerous doctors over many years; a dermatologist said her symptoms "were largely imaginary" or resulted from her own "attempt [at self-medication]". Shelomi describes other inconsistencies, labeling Traver a "textbook case" of delusional parasitosis. Jeffrey Lockwood writes that "Traver's account was a vivid, poignant, and tragic autobiography of a woman driven to desperate measures to affirm the reality of her delusion".

Honors and distinctions

Traver described some 235 species of mayfly new to science. She created 14 mayfly genera or subgenera. Other entomologists named six mayfly species and two genera after her. She was the honorary chairman of the First International Conference on Ephemeroptera at Florida A&M University in 1970, where she was given an achievement plaque and a key to the city of Tallahassee.

Works