K. D. Roeder’s Impact on Insect Neuroethology

Abstract

Neuroethologists today have access to sophisticated techniques that allow us deeper insights into the organization of behavior as well as of the nervous system, and new methods are constantly being developed. Looking back from this vantage point to the mid 1930’s, when Kenneth D. Roeder published his first papers on the role of the head ganglia in mantid locomotor and sexual behavior (Roeder 1935, 1937), and reviewing his nearly 40 years of active neuroethological research, we are impressed by the fact that this extraordinary man produced seminal ideas about, and even preliminary answers to, many questions that remain central to present-day neuroethological research. How did Roeder, who preferred to do his research alone, but was a stimulating partner in conversation and in the classroom, manage to plan and carry out work that would so clearly point the way to the future?