Herbert W. Levi, 93
At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on Feb. 7, 2017, the following Minute was placed upon the records. Spider biology has fascinated scientists and laymen alike and has even inspired the inception of a superhero. Consider a shy young student fleeing the Nazis and arriving to the New World, a young man studying chemistry though fascinated by spiders, an idealist trying to enlist in the U.S. Army but instead being classified as a German enemy alien, a young scientist who in later years would become a professor at an Ivy League university. Marvel needn’t have invented their character; he was already a reality. Indeed, Herbert W. Levi was a superhero, a giant among a new generation of zoologists, who at the Museum of Comparative Zoology trained some of the most brilliant and prolific zoologists of the twentieth century. Today, few young spider biologists lack a connection with Herb...