William Morton Wheeler (March 19, 1865 – April 19, 1937) was an American entomologist, myrmecologist and professor at Harvard University. Biography Early life and education William Morton Wheeler was born on March 19, 1865, to parents Julius Morton Wheeler and Caroline Georgiana Wheeler ( Anderson) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. At a young age, Wheeler had an interest in natural history, first being when he observed a moth ensnared in a spiders web; such observation interested Wheeler that he became importunate for more nature lore. Wheeler attended public school, but, due to "persistently bad behavior", he was transferred to a local German academy which was known for its extreme discipline. After he completed his courses in the German academy, he attended a German normal school. In both institutions, Wheeler was trained in a variety of subjects: he was given training in languages, philosophy and science. By this time, he could read fluently in French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin and Spanish. While he was a student at the German academy, Wheeler would frequently observe the old museum of natural history at the institution. In 1884, Henry August Ward, proprietor of the Ward's Natural Science Establishment, brought a collection of stuffed and skeletonized mammals, birds and reptiles, and also a series of marine invertebrates to the academy. This was to persuade the city fathers to purchase them and combine them with the present collection at the academy, in which it would lay the foundation for a free municipal museum of natural history. Wheeler, who had familiarized himself with the museum since childhood, volunteered to spend the nights in helping to unpack and install the specimens. Impressed by his enthusiasm, Ward offered Wheeler a job in his Rochester, New York establishment. His first duties were to identify and list birds and mammals and the preparation of catalogues. He was later made as a foreman and spent most of his time identifying and arranging the collection of shells, echinoderms, and sponges, as well as preparing catalogues and price lists of these specimens for publication. In 1885, Wheeler returned to Milwaukee to teach German and physiology at a high school. At the time, George W. Peckham was the principal of the school, in which Wheeler and Peckham formed a close working relationship. Wheeler collaborated with some of Peckham's published papers by illustrating the palpi and epigynes of spiders, and by assisting him and his wife with their