Nikolai Vasilyevich Parin (21 November 1932 – 18 April 2012) was a Soviet and Russian

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 35,800 species of fish had been described as of March 2 ...

, specializing in oceanic pelagic fish. He headed the Laboratory of Oceanic Ichthyofauna at the RAS Institute of Oceanology in

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 ...

, where he ended his career as a Professor after more than fifty-seven years. In his career, he described more than 150 new taxa of fish and participated in 20 major oceanic expeditions. Thirty-six species of fish are named in his honour.

Personal life

Parin was born in Perm on 21 November 1932. His father was Vasily Vasilevich Parin, who was the founder and first Secretary General of the USSR Academy of Medicine but later was made politically suspect due to a trip to the United States and a dispute with Trofim Lysenko. After the death of Stalin in 1953 and rise of Khrushchev, his father was rehabilitated and played a key medical role in the

Soviet space program The Soviet space program () was the state space program of the Soviet Union, active from 1951 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Contrary to its competitors (NASA in the United States, the European Space Agency in Western Euro ...

. Because of his father's imprisonment, Parin could not study physics at

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

, as he originally had intended and instead studied fisheries in

. He met his wife Olga in 1963 and married her in 1966. He had one son and two grandchildren. His son, Nick Jr., has published a number of papers on fossil fish.

Career

His primary interest was in the

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

of oceanic fish, though interests in his long career later expanded to include the fish of the deep-water pelagic and the bottom-dwelling fish of coastal slopes and deep-water uprises. Parin graduated with honours from the Moscow Institute of Fisheries in 1955 and shortly after began his life-long career at the P. P Shirshov Institute of Oceanology. He worked as a technician on the ''Vityav'' in Vladivostok until returning to complete his PhD on Exocoetidae and Oxyporhamphidae in 1961. His advisor was Theodore S. Rass. He later received a Doctor of Science for his work on the fish of the oceanic epipelagic in 1968, supervised by A. Andriashev and G. Lindberg. He served as editor-in-chief of the Voprosy Ikhtiologii, Russia's leading journal of ichyology, from 1988 to 2010. He was elected as a corresponding member to the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

in 1994 and later was awarded the Leo S. Berg Gold Medal in 2000 for his work. He won the USSR State Prize for his monograph on the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. He was also elected as foreign member of the

American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists The American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (ASIH) is an international learned society devoted to the scientific studies of ichthyology (study of fish) and herpetology (study of reptiles and amphibians). The primary emphases of th ...

and as Vice President of the European Ichthyological Society.

Taxon described by him

*See :Taxa named by Nikolai Vasilyevich Parin

Taxon named in his honor

*'' Diaphus parini'' Becker, 1992, is a species of lanternfish found in the Southeast

. *The Winged spookfish, '' Dolichopteryx parini'' Kobyliansky & Fedorov, 2001, is a species of fish found in the

. *'' Physiculus parini'' Paulin, 1991 is a bathydemersal fish found in the Southeast

. *'' Plectranthias parini'' W. D. Anderson & J. E. Randall, 1991, Parin's anthias, is a species of

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

in the family

Serranidae Serranidae is a large family (biology), family of fishes belonging to the order Perciformes. The family contains about 450 species in 65 genera, including the sea basses and the groupers (subfamily Epinephelinae). Although many species are small, ...

occurring in the Southeast

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parin, Nikolai 1932_births 2012_deaths Corresponding_Members_of_the_Russian_Academy_of_Sciences Soviet_ichthyologists Russian_ichthyologists Recipients_of_the_USSR_State_Prize