Carl H. Lindroth

Carl Hildebrand Lindroth (8 September 1905 - 23 February 1979) was a Swedish entomologist and a professor at Lund University who was a specialist on the ground beetles with a special interest in biogeography. He was a strong proponent of the Glacial refugium hypothesis and made use of the framework to explain the distributional patterns of Scandinavian beetles.

Lindroth was born in Lund, the son of Professor Hjalmar Lindroth and Stina Hildebrand. His brother Arne became an ecologist and another brother Sten, a historian and philosopher. Their Lund home on Magnus Stenbock was close to the famous cathedral school. The family moved to Gothenburg where he went to school. His natural history interests were developed at the museum and he was influenced by LA Jägerskiöld and Emil Sandin. He also joined the insect society from 1921. He moved to Stockholm University for his undergraduate studies and moved to Uppsala for his doctorate. Lund University was known for work in biogegoraphy especially for the work of Sven Ekman. Lindroth's dissertation was titled Die Insektenfauna Islands und ihre Probleme where he examined the insect faunas of the islands of Iceland. He then became a professor of entomology at Lund and gained a reputation for his lectures and as a teacher. He continued to work extensively on the Carabidae and examined the distributions in the light of past climatic changes.

Lindroth examined wing polymorphisms in ground beetles and supported the view that wingless or brachypterous forms tended to be in greater number within the centres of origin of a species while areas with a preponderance of winged forms tended to be areas that were recently colonized.

Lindroth was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences from 1964 and was well known for his popular science lectures, appearing on the TV program Fråga Lund. He wrote a book for children Myran Emma in 1948. Lindroth married Gun Bodman in 1931 and after her death in 1972 he married Marianne Richter in 1974. He is buried at Norra kyrkogården in Lund.