Robert Charles Wroughton, naturalist, spent his early childhood in India and became an ardent sportsman and naturalist. He joined the Indian Forest Service as an assistant conservator of forests at Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1871. In due course he rose to Inspector General of Forests, a post he held until his retirement in 1904. After his retirement he regularly worked at the Natural History Museum in London. During his career he collected numerous natural history specimens, especially ants. Many of his ants were sent to the Swiss entomologist and psychiatrist Auguste H. Forel of the University of Zurich, but over the years Wroughton became an expert on ants in his own right. During the late eighteen-nineties he developed an interest in small mammals and developed into a notable mammalogist. As a member of the Bombay Natural History Society he played an important role in initiating the society's Mammal Survey of India (1911-1923), believed to be the first collaborative biodiversity study in the world. Some 50 000 specimens were collected and the work led to 47 publications, many of them by Wroughton. Many species were named after him.
Wroughton is credited with presenting ants from Estcourt, KwaZulu-Natal, to the South African Museum in Cape Town during 1913-1914 (Biodiversity explorers). Among his publications there are many that deal with the fauna of Africa, including several on species from southern Africa. For example, "South African snakes" (Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, 1894-1895), "On three new mammals from South Africa" (Journal of Natural History, 1907), "A list of mammals collected by Mr C.F.M. Swynnerton in Northern Gazaland (Portuguese East Africa) and the Melsetter District of Rhodesia" (Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 1908), and "On some local forms of Cephalophus natalensis" (ibid, 1911).
A person identified as Mr R.W. Wroughton, of the Indian civil service in Bombay, presented a valuable collection of ants, made by him in Natal and Basutoland (now Lesotho), to the South African Museum, Cape Town, in 1894. The specimens had already been identified by Professor Forel. Many of the species were new to the museum's collection, as no systematic collecting had yet been done for the museum in the Eastern Cape or Natal. As no information is available about R.W. Wroughton is seems likely that the name is an error for R.C. Wroughton.
