Leonard Gyllenhal
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Gyllenhal was a Swedish naturalist and agriculturalist. He described scarab species in Insecta Suecica, Coleoptera (1808-27) (several boreal European species that had been undescribed to that date), and in Schönherr’s Synonymia Insectorum (1808-1817) (numerous species of mostly Melolonthinae from different parts of the world. Among the youngest of Linnaeus’ pupils, he was also very active in the Swedenborg movement, and after his studies in Uppsala he settled on a big farm in the province of Östergötland from where he carried out philanthropic projects, distributed the Swedenborgian gospel, and corresponded with entomological scientists from all over the world. His own collection is in Uppsala, but the syntype series of his new taxa are often split between that collection and Schönherr’s which is presently at the Stockholm museum.
Information courtesy of Mattias Forshage, Uppsala University, Sweden.
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