[1] He is curator and chairman of the Department of Entomology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
[2] Otte was born and educated in South Africa and began his career at the University of Delaware.
With the world's largest collection of grasshoppers and crickets and an outstanding library, the Academy of Natural Sciences pioneered in the task of placing a catalog of all known species of a major group of insects on the Internet.
Otte has conducted research which documents the magnitude and origin of organic diversity in the following regions: A symposium was held in June 2009 to honor Otte, Curator of Entomology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.
[4] Otte received the Leidy Award for scientific excellence on November 12, 2009 at the Academy, where he has worked as curator of entomology for 35 years.