Boris Borisovich Rohdendorf (, 12 July 1904,

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

– 21 November 1977,

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

) was a Soviet

entomologist Entomology (from Ancient Greek ἔντομον (''éntomon''), meaning "insect", and -logy from λόγος (''lógos''), meaning "study") is the branch of zoology that focuses on insects. Those who study entomology are known as entomologists. In ...

and curator at the Zoological Museum at the

Moscow University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, and six branches. Al ...

. He attained the position of head of the Laboratory of Arthropods,

Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences The Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences (PIN; ) in Moscow is among a paleontological institute. An affiliate of the Russian Academy of Sciences, it includes collections from all over the former Soviet Union, as well as from other ...

Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991. It united the country's leading scientists and was subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (un ...

. A student of Andrey Martynov, he was a prolific

taxonomist In biology, taxonomy () is the science, scientific study of naming, defining (Circumscription (taxonomy), circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics. Organisms are grouped into taxon, taxa (si ...

who described numerous new

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

, including fossil

Diptera Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advance ...

, and published important syntheses on fossil insects. His work was a basis for many Russian paleoentomologists. Rohdendorf was born near St. Petersburg where his father was an army man. He studied at the natural science department of the Moscow University and from 1921 he worked as a taxonomist at the zoological museum of the university. He took a special interest in the Diptera, examining the

Tachinidae The Tachinidae are a large and variable family of true fly, flies within the insect order Fly, Diptera, with more than 8,200 known species and many more to be discovered. Over 1,300 species have been described in North America alone. Insects in t ...

, Phasiidae,

Calliphoridae The Calliphoridae (commonly known as blowflies, blow flies, blow-flies, carrion flies, bluebottles, or greenbottles) are a family of insects in the order Diptera, with almost 1,900 known species. The maggot larvae, often used as fishing bait, ...

and

Sarcophagidae Sarcophagidae () are a family (biology), family of fly, flies commonly known as flesh flies. They differ from most flies in that they are Ovoviviparity, ovoviviparous, opportunistically depositing hatched or hatching maggots instead of eggs on c ...

. In 1923 he described a new Phasiinae from Turkmenistan. He graduated from University in 1925 and began to work on the Palearctic Sarcophagidae. He went on collecting expeditions into central Asia and the Caucasus. He worked for some time on cotton pests at the experimental station in Tashkent. He then examined the dipteran parasites of the locust ''

Schistocerca gregaria The desert locust (''Schistocerca gregaria'') is a species of locust, a periodically swarming, short-horned grasshopper in the family Acrididae. They are found primarily in the deserts and dry areas of northern and eastern Africa, Arabia, and so ...

'' and published his results in 1932''.'' In 1935 he returned to work at the Institute of Zoology at Moscow. In 1936 he examined the fossil material from Kazakhstan. 1937 he published a monograph on the Palearctic Sacophagidae as part of the Fauna of the USSR series. After the death of Martynov in 1938 he became the head of the laboratory and led entomological studies. Nearly 30 genera and species have been named in his honour.

Partial bibliography

* Rohdendorf, B.B. 1937. ipteran insects, Vol. 19, No. 1: Fam. Sarcophagidae (Part 1), Fauna of the USSR, New Series,No. 12 Moscow & Leningrad, 501pp. (In Russian and German) * Rohdendorf, B.B. 1962. Order Diptera. In B.B. Rohdendorf (editor), ''Fundamentals of Paleontology'', vol. 9, Arthropoda-Tracheata and Chelicerata: 444–502. 991 English translation of Russian original, Smithsonian Institution Libraries and National Science Foundation* Rohdendorf, B.B. 1964. istorical development of dipterous insects ''Trudy Paleontol. Inst.'' 100, 311 pp. **Rohdendorf, B.B. 1974. ''The historical development of Diptera''. University of Alberta Press, Edmonton. 360 pp. (English translation) * Rohdendorf, B.B. 1967. 'Directions in the historical development of sarcophagids (Diptera, Sarcophagidae)''Moscow, 92pp. (In Russian) * Rohdendorf, B.B. and Rasnitsyn, A.P. (Editors) 1980. 'A historical development of the class of insects''Moscow, 269pp. (In Russian).

Notes

References

* * , pp. 12–16.

External links

Biography

1904 births 1977 deaths Scientists from Saint Petersburg Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Russian entomologists Russian paleontologists Soviet entomologists Soviet paleontologists {{zoologist-stub Zoologists with author abbreviations