Peter Yulievich Schmidt (born 23 December 1872,

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

, died 25 November 1949,

Leningrad 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 ...

) was a Russian and

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

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 ...

and museum curator. Peter Yulievich Schmidt attended the gymnasium of KI May before studying at the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of

St. Petersburg University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

, from where he graduated in 1895. He was engaged in the laboratory of Professor V.M. Shimkevich and V.T. Shevyakov. He travelled through Semirechiy in 1899-1902. In 1908-1910 he participated in the Kamchatka expedition of F. P. Ryabushinsky, where he headed the zoological department. In 1906, he was awarded with a gold medal named after Petr Petrovich Semyonov by the

Imperial Russian Geographical Society The Russian Geographical Society (), or RGO, is a learned society based in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It promotes geography, exploration and nature protection with research programs in fields including oceanography, ethnography, ecology and stati ...

. From 1906 to 1930 he held the position of a professor at the Agricultural Institute in St. Petersburg (Leningrad) and from 1914 to 1931 he worked at the Zoological Museum of 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 ...

. From 1930 to 1949 Schmidt was a scientific secretary to the Pacific Committee of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1938 he was arrested. along with a group of other employees of the Zoological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, by the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

because they had non-Russian surnames. Schmidt was suspected of espionage for Germany and Japan on the grounds that he had been on scientific missions in Berlin and Tokyo. After interrogation, during which the 66-year-old professor was knocked out, he signed the protocol as required by the NKVD investigators and also confessed to being an Italian spy, as his daughter lived in Italy. Eventually, he was released and was able to continue his scientific activity. Source for the original Russian article Until 1900 the main scientific interests of Schmidt were in

arachnology Arachnology is the science, scientific study of arachnids, which comprise spiders and related invertebrates such as scorpions, Pseudoscorpionida, pseudoscorpions, Opiliones, harvestmen, Tick, ticks, and mites. Those who study spiders and other a ...

, the morphology of the inferior

millipede Millipedes (originating from the Latin , "thousand", and , "foot") are a group of arthropods that are characterised by having two pairs of jointed legs on most body segments; they are known scientifically as the class Diplopoda, the name derive ...

s and the invertebrate fauna of Semirechiye. Even while he was at university, he received a gold medal for a study of millipedes a gold medal. His best known work came after 1900 when he began to study the fish fauna of the Pacific and Ichthyology in its broader sense. Schmidt was the first zoologist to observe the

anabiosis Cryptobiosis or anabiosis is a metabolic state in extremophilic organisms in response to adverse environmental conditions such as desiccation, freezing, and oxygen Hypoxia (medical), deficiency. In the cryptobiotic state, all measurable metabol ...

in desiccated earthworms.Source for the original Russian article He translated scientific literature from German into Russian and was the editor of the Russian "Small Biological Encyclopedia". The

colubrid Colubridae (, commonly known as colubrids , from , 'snake') is a family of snakes. With 249 genera, it is the largest snake family. The earliest fossil species of the family date back to the Late Eocene epoch, with earlier origins suspected. Colu ...

snake '' Dolichophis schmidti'',Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . ("Schmidt, P. Y.", p. 236). the

salmonid Salmonidae (, ) is a family of ray-finned fish, the only extant member of the suborder Salmonoidei, consisting of 11 extant genera and over 200 species collectively known as "salmonids" or "salmonoids". The family includes salmon (both Atlantic a ...

''Salvelinus schmidti'', the cod species ''Lepidion schmidti'', the

Northern smoothtongue The Northern smoothtongue (''Leuroglossus schmidti'') is a type of deepwater fish that can grow to a length of TL. The fish are native from the Pacific Ocean to Oregon, United States and also to the Gulf of California The Gulf of California ...

''Leuroglossus schmidti'' , the

eelpout The eelpouts are the ray-finned fish family Zoarcidae. As the common name suggests, they are somewhat eel-like in appearance. All of the 300 species are marine and mostly bottom-dwelling, some at great depths. Eelpouts are predominantly found i ...

''Lycogrammoides schmidti'', the

lumpfish The Cyclopteridae are a family of marine fishes, commonly known as lumpsuckers or lumpfish, in the order Scorpaeniformes. They are found in the cold waters of the Arctic, North Atlantic, and North Pacific oceans. The greatest number of species ar ...

''Eumicrotremus schmidti'', the

amphipod Amphipoda () is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods () range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 10,700 amphipod species cur ...

''Anisogammarus schmidti'', and a range of mountains on the island of

Urup Urup (; , ) is an uninhabited volcanic island in the Kuril Islands chain in the south of the Sea of Okhotsk, northwest Pacific Ocean. Its name is derived from the Ainu language word ''urup'', meaning "sockeye salmon". Geography and climate U ...

in the

Kurile Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the ...

are all named in honour of Schmidt.

Publications

*Schmidt P. Ueber das Leuchten der Zuckmücken Zool. Jahr. , vol. VIII, 1892 *Schmidt P. Beiträge zur Kenntn. der niederen Myriapoden Zeit. wis. Zool., LIX, 1895 *Schmidt P. Beitrag zur Kenntnis Laufspinnen (Araneae, Citigradae Thor.) Russlands // Zool. Jahrb. Abt. Syst. 1895. Bd. 8. H. 4. S. 439 484. *Materials for the knowledge of the Semirechye region fauna Notes of the West Siberian Branch of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, 1896 (in Russian) *Pisces of the eastern seas of the Russian Empire, St. Petersburg, 1904 (in Russian) *Marine crafts of Sakhalin Island, St. Petersburg, 1905 (in Russian) *The work of the Zoological Department in Kamchatka in 1908 - 1909. // Kamchatka expedition of Fedor Pavlovich Ryabushinsky ... Russian Geographical. society. Zoological. department, at. 1 M., Printing house of Ryabushinskikh T., 1916 (in Russian) *Anabiosis 1923 (in Russian) *Soulful life of animals and its study. 1929 (in Russian) *The organism among organisms Moscow - Leningrad, Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 166, c. : ill. 1941 (in Russian) *Pisces of the Pacific Ocean. An outline of modern theories and views on the distribution and development of the fauna of the Pacific fish, Moscow, 1948 (in Russian) *Fish of the Sea of Okhotsk, Moscow, 1950 (in Russian)

Taxon described by him

*See :Taxa named by Peter Schmidt

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schmidt, Peter Yulievich Scientists from Saint Petersburg Zoologists from the Russian Empire Soviet zoologists 1872 births 1949 deaths