{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2023}} {{Short description|American entomologist (1894–1974)}}
'''Jay R Traver'''{{efn|Her middle name is identical to her father's; it is an 'R' with no trailing period.<ref name="Alexander 1975"/>}} (August 2, 1894{{efn|She was born close to midnight, and the recorded date was apparently August 3, 1894, but her family stated that she was born before midnight on the 2nd, and always used that date.<ref name="Alexander 1975"/>}} – September 5, 1974)<ref name="Alexander 1975"/><ref name=Poor>{{cite journal |last=Poorbaugh |first=J. H. |title=Cryptic arthropod infestations: separating fact from fiction |journal=Bulletin of the Society for Vector Ecology |volume=18 |issue=1 |date=June 1993 |pages=3–5 |url=http://www.sove.org/SOVE%20folder/journal/sovejournal74%2D2000/SOVE%201993%2C%20VOL%2018%2C%20NO%201.pdf |issn=0146-6429 |access-date=August 15, 2020 |archive-date=December 15, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171215131810/http://www.sove.org/SOVE%20folder/journal/sovejournal74-2000/SOVE%201993,%20VOL%2018,%20NO%201.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> 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".<ref name="Peters Peters 1975"/>
Her 1951 publication of a paper titled "Unusual Scalp Dermatitis in Humans Caused by the Mite, ''Dermatophagoides'' (Acarina, epidermoptidae)" about her own symptoms led to a retrospective diagnosis of delusional parasitosis.
== Early life ==
Jay R Traver was born in August 1894 and raised in Willoughby, Ohio. Her parents were Mabel Matilda Dodd and Jay R Traver; her father was a railroad engineer who died in a railroad accident three weeks before she was born. Her mother and her aunt Sara Dodd taught her before she reached school age. She earned her bachelor's degree at Cornell University between 1914 and 1918, majoring in biology, and studying under Anna Botsford Comstock, and in the ambience of the aquatic entomologist James George Needham. She gained her master's degree in 1919, writing her thesis on the Eastern blacknose dace.<ref name="Alexander 1975"/>
== Career ==
Traver held various jobs after graduating, starting in a New York cafeteria in 1919, with a spell back in Cornell under Comstock. After 1920, she spent some years as an elementary school supervisor in Wilmington, Delaware, and later served as acting head of biology in Shorter College, Georgia. She then spent six years teaching biology at Women's College, University of North Carolina at Greensboro.<ref name="Alexander 1975"/> She used that time to study the mayflies of North Carolina, collecting and raising specimens.<ref name="Alexander 1975"/>{{sfn|Needham|Traver|Hsu|1935|p=viii}}
In 1930, she went back to Cornell, completing her PhD in 1931.<ref name="Alexander 1975"/> From 1931, she published a monograph of North Carolina's mayflies in the ''Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society''.{{sfn|Needham|Traver|Hsu|1935|p=viii}} Her PhD thesis dissertation was entitled ''Mayflies of North Carolina''.<ref name="Alexander 1975"/><ref>{{cite book |last=Traver |first=Jay R |title=Mayflies of North Carolina |publisher=Cornell University (PhD Thesis) |date=1932 |oclc=775699991}}</ref> With a Carnegie grant from 1931 to 1937,<ref name="Alexander 1975"/> she collaborated with Needham on what became their 1935 book, ''The Biology of Mayflies''.{{sfn|Needham|Traver|Hsu|1935|p=Title page}} This was described in 2007 as "the cornerstone of North American mayfly entomology".<ref> {{cite book |last=Schwiebert |first=Ernest George |title=Nymphs, The Mayflies: The Major Species |date=2007 |publisher=Lyons Press |volume=1 |isbn=978-1-5922-8499-3 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=XOHVCwAAQBAJ&dq=jay+traver+entomologist&pg=PA438 438] }}</ref>
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.<ref name="Alexander 1975"/> Working with the taxonomist George F. Edmunds in 1954, 1958, and 1959, she reclassified the Ephemeroptera (the Order containing the mayflies) as a whole.<ref name="Alexander 1975"/>
{{multiple image |total_width=400px |image1=Wing_pleating_in_Siphlonurus_mayflies_Edmunds_Traver_1954.jpg |caption1=Drawings of wing flattened on downstroke (top) and pleated on upstroke (middle), with section of pleated wing (bottom) |image2=Siphlonurus occidentalis.jpg |caption2=A male ''Siphlonurus'' mayfly |footer=The 1954 paper by Edmunds and Traver argued that the primitive mayfly wing is pleated, ideal for the male's up-and-down display flight, but poor for travel.<ref name="Flight Mechanics 1954"/>}}
In 1954, again with Edmunds, she contributed one paper on the wings and flight mechanics of mayflies. The paper argues on the basis of study of the forewing of ''Siphlonurus'' that the primitive condition of the mayfly wing is to fold in pleats on the upstroke, fanning out somewhat on the downstroke. The wing thus provided power mainly on the downstroke. More highly evolved mayflies, in their view, have reduced pleating, thus enabling a figure-of-eight "sculling" stroke which provides power on both upstroke and downstroke, enabling more efficient travel.<ref name="Flight Mechanics 1954">{{cite journal |last1=Edmunds |first1=George F. |last2=Traver |first2=Jay R |title=The Flight Mechanics and Evolution of the Wings of Ephemeroptera, with Notes on the Archetype Insect Wing |journal=Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences |volume=44 |issue=12 |year=1954 |pages=390–400 |jstor=24533330 }}</ref>
== 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".<ref name="Peters Peters 1975">{{cite journal |last1=Peters |first1=William L. |author1-link=William L. Peters |last2=Peters |first2=Janice |title=Eatonia [Jay R Traver Obituary Issue] |date=May 5, 1975 |journal=Eatonia |issue=20 |page=1 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/eatonia/20}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Alexander 1975">{{cite journal |last1=Alexander |first1=Charles P. |title=Jay R Traver (1894–1974) |date=May 5, 1975 |journal=Eatonia |issue=20 |pages=2–7 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/eatonia/20}}</ref>
== 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.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Traver |first=Jay R |title=Unusual scalp dermatitis in humans caused by the mite, Dermatophagoides (Acarina, epidermoptidae) |journal=Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington |date=February 1951 |volume=53 |issue=1 |url=http://www.birdmites.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/1951.pdf}} </ref> The paper – her only one not about mayflies<ref name="Alexander 1975"/> – has been taken as suggesting<!-- we can't speak of diagnosis from retrospective analysis of a paper --> delusional parasitosis,<ref name=Hinkle2000>{{cite journal |last=Hinkle |first=Nancy C. |title=Delusory parasitosis |journal=American Entomologist |volume=46 |pages=17–25 |year=2000 |issue=1 |doi=10.1093/ae/46.1.17 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name=Mad/> a mental disorder in which individuals believe that they have a parasite infestation of the skin.<ref name= Hinkle2011>{{cite journal |last=Hinkle |first=Nancy C. |title=Ekbom syndrome: a delusional condition of "bugs in the skin" |journal=Current Psychiatry Reports |volume=13 |issue=3 |pages=178–86 |date=June 2011 |pmid=21344286 |doi=10.1007/s11920-011-0188-0 |s2cid=524974 |url=http://entnemdept.ufl.edu/sepmc/HANDOUTS2015/Hinkle_HO_SEPMC2015.pdf |archive-date=November 1, 2021 |access-date=March 9, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211101231956/https://entnemdept.ufl.edu/sepmc/HANDOUTS2015/Hinkle_HO_SEPMC2015.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name=Reich2019>{{cite journal |last1=Reich |first1=A |last2=Kwiatkowska |first2=D. |last3=Pacan |first3=P. |title=Delusions of Parasitosis: an update |journal=Dermatology and Therapy |volume=9 |issue=4 |pages=631–638 |date=December 2019 |pmid=31520344 |pmc=6828902 |doi=10.1007/s13555-019-00324-3 |type=Review}}</ref> She visited numerous doctors over many years; a dermatologist said her symptoms "were largely imaginary" or resulted from her own "attempt [at self-medication]".<ref name=Mad/> She used 22 different chemicals to attempt to rid herself of the infestation.<ref name=Mad/>
Matan Shelomi describes the article as ending with a "tirade against the 'medical profession' and her pride in rejecting the dermatologist’s verdict".<ref name= Mad/> She claimed in the paper that the cause of her infestation was a rare dust mite.<ref name= Lockwood/> Alex Fain states that Travers' account was wrong, because dust mites do not burrow into human skin.<ref name= Lockwood/><ref>{{cite book |page= [https://books.google.com/books?id=vTXTBwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Arthropods+and+Human+Skin%22+traver&pg=PA342 342] |last=Alexander |first=John O'Donel |title=Arthropods and Human Skin |publisher=Springer London |date= 2012 |isbn=9781447113560}}</ref> Shelomi describes other inconsistencies, labeling Traver a "textbook case" of delusional parasitosis.<ref name=Mad>{{cite journal |last=Shelomi |first=Matan |title=Mad scientist: the unique case of a published delusion |journal=Science and Engineering Ethics |volume=19 |issue=2 |pages=381–388 |date=June 2013 |pmid=22173734 |doi=10.1007/s11948-011-9339-2 |s2cid=26369401 }}</ref> 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".<ref name=Lockwood/> Shelomi states that the 1951 paper is "unique ... in that its conclusions may be based on data that was unconsciously fabricated by the author's mind".<ref name=Mad/> He argues that the paper warrants retraction, and that it has done "permanent and lasting damage" to people with delusional parasitosis. Together with higher rates of the related delusion of Morgellons, he says papers enabling delusions may increase without stricter journal publishing standards.<ref name=Mad/> Lockwood asserts that Traver was responsible for "one of the most remarkable mistakes ever published in a scientific entomological journal".<ref name=Lockwood>{{cite book |last=Lockwood |first=Jeffrey |title=The Infested Mind: Why Humans Fear, Loathe, and Love Insects |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2013 |isbn=978-0-1999-3019-7 |pages=[https://books.google.com/books?id=9Vl_AAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Jay+Traver%22+bio&pg=PA101 101–102] }}</ref>
== 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.<ref name="Alexander 1975"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Peters |first1=William L. |last2=Peters |first2=Janice G. |title=Proceedings of the First International Conference on Ephemeroptera |date=1973 |publisher=E. J. Brill |location=Leiden |isbn=90-04-03590-7 |page=2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xskUAAAAIAAJ&dq=%22Jay+R.+Traver%22+%22ephemeroptera%22+&pg=PA1}}</ref>
== Works ==
* {{cite book |last1=Needham |first1=James G. |last2=Traver |first2=Jay R |last3=Hsu |first3=Yin-chi |title=The Biology of Mayflies with a Systematic Account of North American Species |date=1935 |publisher=Comstock |location=Ithaca, New York |oclc=814047 |pages=759, color frontispiece, monochrome illustrations, diagrams |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015004576099&view=1up&seq=9}}
== Notes ==
{{notelist}}
== References ==
{{Reflist|30em}}
{{Ephemeroptera}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Traver, Jay}} Category:American entomologists Category:1894 births Category:1974 deaths Category:20th-century American zoologists Category:Medical controversies in the United States Category:Delusional parasitosis Category:American taxonomists Category:Cornell University alumni Category:University of Massachusetts Amherst faculty