Victor Motschulsky

Victor Ivanovitsch Motschulsky (Sometimes Victor von Motschulsky, Russian: Виктор Иванович Мочульский, 11 April 1810 in St. Petersburg – 5 June 1871 in Simferopol) was a Russian entomologist mainly interested in beetles.

Motschulsky was an Imperial Army colonel who undertook extended trips abroad. He studied and described many new beetles from Siberia, Alaska, the United States of America, Europe, and Asia. While he tended to ignore previous work and his own work on classification was of poor quality, Motschulsky made a massive contribution to entomology, exploring hitherto unworked regions, often in very difficult terrain. He described many new genera and species, a high proportion of which remain valid.

Motschulsky’s travels included:

1836 - France, Switzerland and the Alps, northern Italy and Austria

1839-1840 - Russian Caucasus, Astrakhan, Kazan and Siberia

1847 - Khirgizia

1850-1851 - Germany, Austria, Egypt, India, France, England, Belgium and Dalmatia

1853 - United States of America, Panama, returning to St. Petersburg via Hamburg, Kiel and Copenhagen

1853 - Germany, Switzerland and Austria

Motschulsky has 45 published works, mostly on biogeographic, faunistic, or systematic aspects of entomology. Many of these works are based on studies of insect collections that were created by a large number of other naturalists, especially Russians who had been to Siberia. Most of his works are on Coleoptera, but some are on Lepidoptera and Hemiptera. He also made collections of other arthropod groups including myriapods sometimes describing species under the name of "Victor".

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