PROCTOS after 20 years (1975-1995)

How and why PROCTOS was born? After some time (1975-1986) it died... Did it really die or was it in some long dormancy or diaspora? Is there life after PROCTOS? The Editors are not sure but decided to resuscitate the first Hymenoptera newsletter (etd. 1975), no matter what. Well, why the hell not!

In 1975 (and a long time before that date) interesting ideas about proctos were conceived, circulated in correspondence, shared and debated by a small circle of struggling believers. Some ideas were more lucky, ending eventually in various publications. Regrettably, quite a few were forgotten or deemed by jurors as not noble enough or too andecdotal to deserve publication. But progress rarely goes by glamorous leaps or splendid bounds; these happen only from time to time, as meteorites or comets, and as such are difficult to predict or control. More prosaically, the progress usually goes by creeping and inching; sometimes the inches may shrink into millimeters (in conformity with the decadic conversion). But even this milliprogress has its place and merits, should be recorded and communicated.

Eureka! The ethical as well as practical niche for our newsletter was rediscovered (Chris Columbus, you were late by only some 500 years!). We feel that the time is just right to wake up the old PROCTOS to new life. Your responses from the 1994 Questionnaire were more than encouraging and much appreciated; PROCTOS will fly again! But only you, the subscribers (Ha, still no fees!) and contributors can provide the wings for PROCTOS. The Editors will do the Cinderella job with better feeling if plenty of news and ideas keep coming from you. Do not underestimate the value and impact of your everyday thoughts and ideas; some greatest ideas are incredibly simple, the matter remains to communicate them.

PROCTOS will provide forum for all ideas, small or not so small, conventional or controversial. Generally, any news or ideas that contribute towards the day-by-day progress in proctotrupidology are welcome. Primarily, PROCTOS is aimed to monitor your activities throughout the year, to record all those anecdotal events that only rarely get published. Most suitable topics would be such as the collecting reports (travelogues, including faunal lists), information on collections and types, desiderata (reprints and material) but also gossip, rumors and jokes. In accordance with accepted policies of all newsletters, PROCTOS can not publish taxonomic descriptions of new taxa or nomenclatoric changes. Bibliography will be compiled by the Editors from reprints received from you.

As a matter of principle and practicality, no publication will be listed without the receipt of the reprint. Reprint is the only gain for the Editors and simultaneously an incentive for the subscribers. Similarly, Questionnaires containing only the bare data (name and address) will not be included in the next annual report and the sender knocked off the mailing list. The Editors strongly believe that there is always something extra to be communicated and shared. After all, PROCTOS is for sharing!

We hope to publish and distribute PROCTOS as an annual newsletter, pending the agenda, time and resources. We plan to change the logo with each issue; there are so many beautiful proctos deserving more publicity! We ask you to fill out the 1995 Questionnaire included at tile back of this rebirili issue and submit "neat" or "otherwise interesting" articles for the first "real" issue due this fall- winter 1995. Thank you all for the response given so far. We would also like to encourage our readership to take advantage of our Email capabilities. In the near future, we hope to make PROCTOS available through Internet. Our Email address is "MASNERL@ncccot2.agr.ca" or "DENISJ@ncccot2.agr.ca". We also wish to use this opportunity to send regards to all sister newsletters on Hymenoptera. Special thanks go to the Insect Collection Newsletter No. 9 and SPHECOS No. 28 for publishing the news about PROCTOS coming out of dormancy.

The Editors
Ottawa, March 1995 Click on image to return to the Ohio State University Insect Collection's home page.