Ilya Darevsky
| Ilya Sergeyevich Darevsky | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
18 December 1924 Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, USSR |
| Died | 8 August 2009 (aged 84) St. Petersburg, Russia |
| Citizenship | Russian |
| Fields | Zoology, herpetology |
| Institutions |
Russian Academy of Sciences Leningrad State University |
| Alma mater | Moscow State University |
| Doctoral advisor | Sergey A. Chernov |
Ilya Sergeyevich Darevsky (Russian: Илья Сергеевич Даревский, 18 December 1924 – 8 August 2009) was a Soviet Russian zoologist-herpetologist and a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. During his career he described 34 species of amphibians and reptilians.Darevskia, a genus of Caucasian rock lizards, is named after him.
Darevsky was born on 18 December 1924 in Kiev. He was interested in amphibians and reptilians since his childhood, when he met Sergey A. Chernov, a herpetologist from Leningrad. During World War II, he was wounded twice and was decorated with the Order of the Red Star and Order of the Great Patriotic War of the 1st degree.
After the War, Darevsky was recruited to join the Biology Faculty of the Moscow State University, from which he graduated in 1953. From 1954 to 1962, worked in Armenia, first as a Ph. D. student, then as a Junior Researcher, Scientific Secretary and Head of the Department of Zoological Institute, Armenian SSR Academy of Sciences. In 1958, he defended his Kandidat thesis on reptiles of Armenia and their zoogeography (under the supervision of Dr. Sergey A. Chernov). Later on, studies of the Caucasian herpetofauna, and the rock lizards in particular, made him a recognized scientist. In 1962, Darevsky became Junior Researcher at the Zoological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences; in 1967, he defended his Doktor of sciences thesis "The Rock Lizards of the Caucasus"; and in 1976, he became the Head of Laboratory of Ornithology and Herpetology, which he led for the next twenty years.
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