Darevsky, Ilya Sergeevich

Born December 18, 1924 in Kiev . In the documents of the war, nationality is indicated - Pole. Mother - Sofia Izrailevna Darevskaya (1898—?), Worked as a typist ^{[2] [3]} . He spent his childhood in Rakitnoye , where his father worked at a distillery. In the early 1930s, the family moved to Kiev, where his father soon died (1934). While still a schoolboy, Darevsky corresponded on herpetology issues with S. A. Chernov, head of the herpetological department of the Zoological Institute in Leningrad. Once Chernov received a letter of the following content: “dear Sergey Alexandrovich, the mother of the naturalist Ilyusha writes to you ... he abandoned his studies ...". Ilya Darevsky literally raved about lizards, snakes, turtles, on one shoulder he had a tattoo - a turtle, on the other - a lizard. Chernov wrote a letter of exhortation to the student ^[4] . By 1941, Darevsky graduated from 9 classes ^[2] .

At the beginning of the war he entered the vocational school of communications, which trained military signalmen ^[5] . For 1942, a member of the Komsomol. He was drafted into the army in December 1942 by the Barnaul city military registration and enlistment office (Altai Territory, Barnaul) ^[2] . The battle path began in the winter of 1943 near Smolensk. He was wounded twice ^[1] . He ended the war as a communications platoon commander with the rank of lieutenant. May 9 met in a field hospital in Königsberg, where he was treated after a shrapnel wound in the leg ^[5] .

In 1953 he graduated from the Department of Vertebrate Zoology of the Biological and Soil Faculty of Moscow University . Then he went to work in Armenia, where he entered the graduate school of the Institute of Zoology of the Academy of Sciences of Armenia. In 1957 he defended his thesis on the topic “Fauna of reptiles of Armenia and its zoogeographic analysis”. He remained a junior research fellow at the Institute of Zoology of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR, was his scientific secretary, and was in charge of the sector ^[6] . In 1962, S. A. Chernov insisted that the leadership of the Zoological Institute in Leningrad invite Darevsky to work with the prospect of taking the place of the head. laboratory of ornithology and herpetology to replace Chernov ^[4] . This post was held by Darevsky from 1962 to 1994. In 1962 - 1976 he was a senior researcher at the Zoological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, from 1995 he was a chief researcher at the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences ( St. Petersburg ).

• Doctor of Biological Sciences ( 1967 ).
• Approved as a professor ( 1978 ).
• Corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the Department of General Biology, specializing in zoology since 1987 .
• Awarded the title "Herpetologist of the Year", Ann Arbor, USA, (1989) ^[7] .

In 1997, the Spanish scientist Arribas singled out rock lizards from the genus Lacerta in a separate genus and named it in honor of Ilya Sergeyevich Darevskia ^[8] .

He died in 2009. He was buried at Komarovsky cemetery .

Elected President of the Herpetological Society. A.M. Nikolsky at the Russian Academy of Sciences ( St. Petersburg ) in 1991 - 2006 .

• Member of the International Toxicology Society ( 1966 )
• Member of the International Herpetological League ( 1970 )
• Member of the European Herpetological Society ( 1980 )
• Honorary Foreign Member of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists ( 1973 ).
• Member of the American Society of Zoologists ( 1989 ).
• Research Professor at the University of California.

Comparative zoology, general herpetology, systematics , faunistics , ecology , morphology , speciation , variability of amphibians and reptiles, their protection, etc.

He discovered the phenomenon of parthenogenesis in vertebrates. Specialist in the field of phylogeny and systematics of reptiles and amphibians of domestic and foreign fauna.

• First wife - Irina Bei-Bienko (1932–1979), entomologist, candidate of biological sciences, daughter of entomologist Grigory Yakovlevich Bey-Bienko .
  • Son - Alexander Ilyich Darevsky (born 1959), a graduate of the Eastern Department of the A. A. Zhdanov Leningrad State University.
• Second wife (since 1983) - Vernata Viktorovna Grechko (born 1930), molecular biologist, doctor of biological sciences, professor, leading researcher at the V.A. Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology.

• 1997 - St. Petersburg, ul. Rashetova d. 7, apt. 33 ^[7] .

The author of about 300 scientific papers and scientific discoveries (the phenomenon of parthenogenesis in vertebrates). Creator of the St. Petersburg Herpetological School.

• Darevsky I.S. 1953 . On the beneficial role of the viviparous lizard in connection with the question of assessing the economic importance of the lizards of our fauna // Bull. MOIP, Dep. Biol., 58, 4: 21 - 31.
• Darevsky I.S. 1957 . The fauna of reptiles of Armenia and its zoogeographic analysis. Abstract. diss ....... Candidate of Biological Science. Yerevan. 24 sec
• Darevsky I.S. 1967 . Rock lizards of the Caucasus: Systematics, ecology, phylogeny of the polymorphic group of Caucasian rock lizards of the subgenus Archaeolacerta - L .: Science. - 214 p.
• Darevsky I.S. 1988 . Rare and endangered animals: amphibians and reptiles - M .: Higher school. - 463 p.
• Darevsky I.S. 1993 . Evolution and ecology of parthenogenetic reproduction in reptiles // Modern problems of the theory of evolution. M., 1993. S. 89-109.

• Darevsky I.S. Danielyan F.D. 2001 . Natural allotriploidy in some species of rocky Caucasian lizards and the likely evolutionary significance of this phenomenon // Evolution, Ecology, Speciation: Materials of the Conf. Memory of N. N. Vorontsov (1934–2000), December 26-27, 2000. - M. - 2001. −131-133.
• Chobanu D.G. Grechko V.V., Darevsky I.S. Molecular evolution of satellite DNA of CLsat lizards of the genus Darevskia (Sauria: Lacertidae). // Genetics. 39.11. - 2003. - 1527-1541.
• Darevsky I.S. Evolution and ecology of partenogenesis in reptiles (Herpetology, 1992)
• Darevskij IS, 1984 . Lacerta caucasica Mehely 1909 - Kaukasische Felseidechse // Handbuch der Reptilien und Amphibien Europas, band 2/1 (hrsg. Von W. Bohme). Wiesbaden: AULA-Verlag. 225 - 238 s.
• Darevskij IS, 1984 . Lacerta saxicola Eversmann 1834 - Felseidechse // Handbuch der Reptilien und Amphibien Europas, band 2/1 (hrsg. Von W. Bohme). Wiesbaden: AULA-Verlag. 345 - 361 s.
• Darevskij IS, 1984 . Lacerta strigata Eichwald, 1831 - Kaspische Smaragdeidechse // Handbuch der Reptilien und Amphibien Europas, band 2/1 (hrsg. Von W. Bohme). Wiesbaden: AULA-Verlag. 82 - 99 s.
• Darevsky IS, Kupriyanova LA, Uzzell T. 1985 . Parthenogenesis in reptiles // Biology of the Reptilia / Eds RM Dawly and JP Bogart. NY, 1985. V. 15. P.412-526;

• Several species of amphibians and reptiles are named after Darevsky (for example, the viper Darevsky ( Vipera darevskii Vedmederja, Orlov & Tunyev, 1986)).
• The genus of real lizards - Rock lizards - carries the Latin name Darevskia .

Darevsky described 35 species of reptiles, mostly lizards ^[9] :

• I. S. Darevsky , MY BIOGRAPHY (HERPETOLOGY AND LIFE)
• Lizards breeding without males