Jan Wacław Stach (March 8, 1877 – July 28, 1975) was a Polish zoologist who studied the

collembola Springtails (class Collembola) form the largest of the three lineages of modern hexapods that are no longer considered insects. Although the three lineages are sometimes grouped together in a class called Entognatha because they have internal m ...

as well as studied

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58Jagiellonian University The Jagiellonian University (, UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great, King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and one of the List of oldest universities in con ...

Life and work

Stach was born in

Rzeszów Rzeszów ( , ) is the largest city in southeastern Poland. It is located on both sides of the Wisłok River in the heartland of the Sandomierz Basin. Rzeszów is the capital of the Subcarpathian Voivodeship and the county seat, seat of Rzeszów C ...

and studied zoology at the Jagiellonian University, receiving a master's degree in 1900 under Henryk Hoyer. He taught at a school briefly and in 1919 he headed the physiographic museum in Krakow. During military service under the Austro-Hungarian region he collected extensively from the Tatra Mountain region. In 1951 he became a professor and in 1953 he was made director of the institution which later became the institute of zoology under the Polish Academy of Sciences. In 1929 he was involved in excavations in

Starunia Starunya or Starunia () is a village in Ivano-Frankivsk Raion, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, Ukraine. It belongs to Bohorodchany settlement hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Until 18 July 2020, Starunia belonged to Bohorodchany Raion Bohorod ...

where a sub-fossil

woolly rhinoceros The woolly rhinoceros (''Coelodonta antiquitatis'') is an extinct species of rhinoceros that inhabited northern Eurasia during the Pleistocene epoch. The woolly rhinoceros was a member of the Pleistocene megafauna. The woolly rhinoceros was larg ...

(''Coelodonta antiquitatis'') was obtained complete with soft parts preserved. Stach oversaw the preservation of this specimen which is now in the Museum of Natural History. After World War II he worked on monographs on the non-insect hexapods, particularly the

Collembola Springtails (class Collembola) form the largest of the three lineages of modern hexapods that are no longer considered insects. Although the three lineages are sometimes grouped together in a class called Entognatha because they have internal m ...

which he covered in nine volumes. He described the remains of ''Ursus wenzensis'' and other mammals found in Węże reserve in 1959. He collected nearly 65000 specimens of insects based on which many new taxa were described. The louse ''Stachiella'' ; the sprintail ''Ianstachia'' ; the moth ''Antispila stachjanella'' ; and the fossil rodent ''Stachomys'' are named in his honour.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stach, Jan 1877 births 1975 deaths Polish zoologists