David Sharp FRS FLS FZS (18 October 1840[1] – 27 August 1922) was an English physician and entomologist who worked mainly on Beetles.

At the age of seventeen he commenced to help his father, a leather merchant, and about the same time he began collecting beetles, some of his favourite haunts being Ken Wood and Hammersmith Marshes, as well as the sandy shores about Deal and Dover.

After his short residence in London he was offered a post as medical officer in the Crichton Asylum at Dumfries, which led to his taking charge of a case at Thornhill in the neighbourhood, where he joined the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Scientific, Natural History, and Antiquarian Society upon its reconstruction in 1876.

This engagement gave him the leisure he desired for prosecuting the studies on which his heart was set, and it was during this period that he published some of his earlier papers.

In 1883, upon the death of a wealthy patient, William Cunninghame Graham Bontine (1825-1883), to whom he served as a special medical attendant, he returned to England.

The injury led to serious mental issues and the patient was declared "insane" and admitted to the Crichton Royal Institution.

The high distinction of being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society fell to his lot in 1890, and the next year the University of Cambridge conferred on him the degree of Master of Arts, honoris causa.

A Revision of the British Species of Homalota (Coleoptera) was published by the Entomological Society of London soon after his graduation at Edinburgh.

In November 1873 appeared a paper in Spanish – Especies nuevas de Coleópteros por Don David Sharp.

The Dascillidae of New Zealand was published in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History in July 1878; while work on water beetles was taken for publication by the Royal Society of Dublin.

Society in 1883); Stridulation in Ants, 1893; an Account of the Phasmidae, 1898; and the Grouse-fly, 1907, are away from Coleoptera, and A Scheme for a National System of Rest-Funds (or Pensions) for Working People (1892) shows that he could detach himself from entomology altogether.

Sharp's major papers included those on the Coleoptera of the Hawaiian Islands published by the Entomological Society of London in 1878, 1879 and 1880.

Sharp often spoke of the primitive conditions in years gone by to be found in the New Forest and in Scotland, and told amusing stories of their difficulties in the way of procuring food and lodgings.

Sharp's extensive collection, including several thousand type specimens, is housed at the Natural History Museum, London.