Bob George - obituary - Telegraph Pulex irritans, the human flea, which most commonly bites people (ALAMY) Over the years George developed a precise notion of how fleas are distributed across the British Isles, presenting these findings in his atlas, which was published by the Biological Records Centre. He also discovered which species were thriving, and which in decline. "Dog fleas have become very rare," he said in 2008. Nearly all fleas on dogs now are, in fact, cat fleas. His fascination with the subject dated back to 1949, when he was living in Gloucester. He was already interested in natural history, and over a three-night period trapped 35 mice, on one of which he found 15 fleas which he sent to Frans Smit, curator of the Rothschild Collection of Siphonaptera at Tring in Hertfordshire. Smit told him that they included two species that had never before been recorded in Gloucestershire; and George, who at the time was taking a particular interest in beetles, decided to switch the focus of his attention: "The temptation of adding new knowledge on the British fauna was too great. Fleas had one great advantage over beetles - there was little competition. His first paper was The Siphonaptera of Gloucestershire, and by 1966 he had supplied more than 10,000 records for some 60 species of flea to the Biological Records Centre . The son of an architect, Robert Stephen George was born in Gloucester on May 5 1921. He later recalled: "As a kid I was thoroughly interested in anything in the garden, in the countryside, everywhere. I had collections of lepidoptera, spiders (which rotted), birds" eggs, pressed flowers. I kept rabbits; aquaria in which I had sticklebacks, newts and tadpoles; fossils from the Cotswolds; mosses; anything that took my fancy. Those were the days when every buddleia bush was covered with small tortoiseshells, peacocks and red admirals, when small and large whites swarmed my father's cabbages and at night the garden was full of moths. During his two years in the sixth form at the Crypt School in Gloucester, Bob recorded more than 500 species of flowering plants; his lists and site records were later used by the authors of the Flora of Gloucestershire. The outbreak of war coincided with his leaving school, and in March 1941 he joined the RAF, training as a pilot in the United States. On his return to Britain he gained experience in Spitfires and went to No 616 (South Yorkshire) Squadron . In 1943 he attacked road and rail communications in northern France, and escorted bomber formations on operations over the Brest Peninsula. When the Allies landed in Normandy, half his squadron was withdrawn from the front line to train on the Meteor jet fighter - but George remained in the Spitfire, and was heavily involved over the beachhead, being credited with destroying enemy trucks and a staff car. Bob George in his days as a fighter pilot with the RAF On June 21 1944 George and the remaining pilots of No 616 converted to the Meteor, and after just five sorties in the twin-engined aircraft were declared operational on jets. No 616 was the RAF's first jet squadron, and the only Allied squadron to fly jets during the Second World War. In August, George and his colleagues were moved to Manston in Kent to intercept the V-1 flying bombs. In the latter stages of the war No 616 was employed in ground attack missions over Germany, and George flew numerous sorties against the retreating German Army. He remained with the squadron when it was renumbered No 263 on its return to England. As one of the most experienced jet pilots in the RAF at that time, he instructed new pilots on the revolutionary aircraft before leaving the RAF in 1946. George decided to become a schoolmaster, and returned to his old school in Gloucester as a biology teacher. Later in his career he was Principal of Adult Education at Sawston Village College, Cambridgeshire, where he helped to set up the Village College Music Festival. He retired in 1982 and went to live at Bournemouth, having a few years earlier established his own business, Marris House Nets, the first to make Malaise traps (large, tent-like structures to catch insects) commercially available in Britain; it is now a standard means of sampling airborne insects. Bob George was a Fellow of the Linnean Society and a founding member of the Gloucester Wildlife Trust - he was the first person to chair its council. He married, in 1943, Dorothy Benoist. She died in 2005, and he is survived by their son and two daughters. Bob George, born May 5 1921, died November 9 2013