Per Abraham Roman

Abraham Roman also Per Abraham Roman (1872–1943) was a Swedish entomologist. He specialised in Ichneumonidae (the ichneumonid wasps), working on worldwide expedition material in the Stockholm Natural History Museum. His collection is in that institution. Roman made two expeditions to South America. During his 36-year career at the museum, Roman systematically expanded and reorganized the museum's ichneumonid collection, increasing it from about 25,000 to over 120,000 identified specimens. Roman pioneered the use of genital morphology for distinguishing similar-looking Pimplinae species and introduced standardized terminology for describing structural patterns on the rear segment of wasp bodies, a system that became widely adopted in scientific identification guides.

Life and career

Per Abraham Roman was born at Tjos, Västergötland, on 16 November 1872 and trained as a primary-school teacher before reading zoology at Uppsala University under Tycho Tullberg. In 1907 he was appointed amanuensis in charge of Hymenoptera at the Swedish Museum of Natural History (NRM), a post he retained until his death in Örebro on 23 December 1943.