Richard South

Richard South FRES (1846–1932) was an English entomologist who specialised in Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths).
South was born in Marylebone, London, England and educated at a private school, in Reading.
He is best known for writing three important books on butterflies and moths of the British Isles. After his death, these were updated by H. M. Edelsten. Michael Salmon has described these as "innovative" and "a new kind of [field] guide for the [twentieth] century", noting their early use of colour photographs and eschewing of "Victorian polixity and classical preciousness". The moth volumes were reprinted as late as 1980.
South was editor of The Entomologist. He also published many papers on the Lepidoptera of the Far East, including China and Korea, and an account of the butterflies collected by Captain F.M. Bailey in western China, Tibet and South-Eastern and the Mishmi Hills.
Major parts of his collections of specimens survive, in the Natural History Museum and in the collection of Birmingham Museums Trust.

South was married twice, firstly to his cousin Sarah, and after widowhood, to Evelyn Urquhart, whose father had been a Mayor of Paddington. He lived in London.

• South R. (1906) The Butterflies of the British Isles, Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd., London & NY: 210 pp.
• South R. (1907) The Moths of the British Isles, (First Series), Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd., London & NY: 359 pp.
• South R. (1908) The Moths of the British Isles, (Second Series), Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd., London & NY: 388 pp.
• South R. (1923) Catalogue of the Collection of Palaearctic Butterflies, (Publisher unknown) 240 pp.
• South R., Stokoe W.J. & Stovin G.H.T. (1948) The Caterpillars of British Moths including the Eggs, Chrysalids and Food-Plants, Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd., London & NY: 408 pp.