Monchadsky, Alexander Samoilovich

Alexander Samoilovich was born in St. Petersburg in the family of a pharmacist. He graduated from the Tenishev School , then entered the Forest Institute .

In 1916 he was drafted into the army on the Russian-German front. In 1918, he moved to Petrograd and transferred to the biological department of the Petrograd University branch. However, the very next year Monchadsky was again mobilized into the Red Army ^[2] .

In 1921, Petrograd University returned and began to work under the guidance of V. A. Dogel . He completed a master's thesis on the topic: "Stigmal plates of Culicidae larvae."

From 1928 to 1930 he worked as a researcher at the Peterhof Institute of Natural Sciences.

From 1924 until the end of his life he worked at the Zoological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR , and served as secretary of the Commission for the Study of Malaria Mosquitoes.

In 1938 he defended his doctoral dissertation on the topic “Evolution of larvae and its relationship with the evolution of adult insects within the Culicidae family”.

From 1942 to 1974 he was the head of the department (later laboratory) of parasitology, which was created by academician E.N. Pavlovsky ^[2] .

For several years, Monchadsky worked at the Department of Entomology, continuing his research in the field of morphology, ecology and systematics of mosquito larvae ^[2] .

In 1955 he signed the " letter of three hundred ."

He developed the scientific basis for the fight against blood-sucking dipterans . He studied larvae of blood-sucking mosquitoes . The result of these works was the first determinant of the larvae of this family of Palaearctic fauna. He studied intra-and interspecific haoborid mosquito relations, assessed the contribution of larvae of this family to kill blood-sucking mosquitoes . In these experiments, it was shown that the larvae of the genus Cryophyla do not have food selectivity and, along with the feeding of the larvae of Culicidae , also eagerly eat representatives of their own species, while the genera Choaborus and Mochlonyx attack mainly the larvae of bloodsucking mosquitoes with an abundance of food ^[3] .

Monchadsky's scientific research was devoted to studying the ecology of blood-sucking dipterans, primarily representatives of the Culicidae family. He established the patterns of attacks of henchmen on humans, depending on various environmental factors ^[4] . He identified two types of behavior of female bloodsucking dipterans. The first type is “search flight,” in which hungry females leave their shelters and actively seek out objects of bloodsucking. This type is characteristic of horseflies and is almost not expressed in biting midges . The second "lurking type", the females at the same time hide in the plant layer or sit on the surface of the soil. If a person or animal passes near this place, then the females fly out and attack their victims, chasing them along the way. This type is most characteristic of midges and bloodsucking mosquitoes and is not observed in horseflies . A special case of lurking flight is the “creep” typical of biting midges ^[4] .

He developed an original classification of environmental factors , which is based on the fact that the adaptation of organisms to environmental factors depends on the degree of constancy of the impact of these factors. These factors may change at some intervals or may not be periodic. Periodic factors are divided into primary and secondary. The primary periodic factors include phenomena associated with the rotation of the Earth - a daily change in illumination, a change in the seasons. Secondary periodic factors are formed under the influence of primary ones. These include the regime of humidity and air temperature, rainfall, vegetation productivity (for herbivores), the content of dissolved gases in water ^{[5] [6]} .

Monchadsky developed an objective and accurate method of accounting for flying bloodsucking dipterans using the "accounting bell", which was called the "Monchadsky bell". This device is a cone-shaped cover made of white calico 2 m high and 1.4 m in diameter, which are fixed above the bait object. After some time of exposure, the bell is lowered, and insects caught in it are caught ^{[7] [8]} .

For a series of works in the field of the study of parasitic insects in 1972, Monchadsky was awarded the Gold Medal to them. E. N. Pavlovsky . "

Monchadsky was the editor-in-chief of the journal Plant Protection (since 1930) and The Parasitological Collection (since 1940). Since 1967 he is deputy editor of the journal Parasitology ^[2] .

• Monchadsky A.S. Flying blood-sucking dipterans - an infamous: (Methods of protection and research methods). - Moscow-Leningrad: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1952. - 68 p.
• Monchadsky A.S. Larvae of blood-sucking mosquitoes of the USSR and neighboring countries. (Subfamily Culicinae). - Moscow-Leningrad: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1951. - 291 p.
• Monchadsky A. S., Shtakelberg A. A. Malaria mosquitoes of Tajikistan and measures to combat them. - Stalinabad, 1943 .-- 95 s.
• Blagoveshchensky D. I., Bregetova N. G., Monchadsky A. S. Activity of mosquito attack in natural conditions and its daily rhythm // Zoological Journal . - 1943. - T. 22 , No. 3 . - S. 138-153. .
• Kovrov B.G., Monchadsky A.S. On the possibility of using polarized light to attract insects // Entomological Review . - 1963. - T. 42 , No. 1 . - S. 49–55 .
• Gutsevich A.V., Monchadsky A.S., Stackelberg A.A. Mosquitoes: Family Culicidae. - Leningrad: Nauka , 1970 .-- 384 p.
• Ivanov A.V. , Monchadsky A.S., Polyansky Yu.I. , Strelkov A.A. Large workshop on invertebrate zoology. Types: Annelids, Arthropods. Textbook for students of biological specialties Part 2. - 3rd ed., Revised and supplemented. - M .: Higher school , 1983. - 543 p.
• Bykhovsky B.E. , Kozlova E.V., Monchadsky A.S., Naumov V.D., Sokolov A.S., Rykov N.A., Terentyev P.V. Biology. Animals 7-8 classes. Textbook / Ed. M.A. Kozlova. - 23rd ed. - M .: Education , 1993 .-- 256 p. - ISBN 5-09-004388-4 .

Monchadsky was named after the genus of feather mites Montchadskiana Dubinin, 1951 ^[9] from the family Pterolichidae and the mosquito species Aedes montchadskyi Dubitsky, 1968 ^[10] .

• Dipterology
• Gnus

• Bykhovsky B.E. Alexander Samoilovich Monchadsky (on the occasion of his 70th birthday) // Zoological Journal . - 1967. - T. 46 , No. 8 . - S. 1273-1274 .
• Bykhovskaya-Pavlovskaya I.E. , Dubinina M.N. In memory of Professor Alexander Samoilovich Monchadsky (1897-1974). Obituary. // Parasitology . - 1975. - T. 9 , No. 2 . - S. 205-206 .
• Gutsevich A.V. In memory of Alexander Samoilovich Monchadsky (1897-1974) // Entomological review . - 1975. - T. 54 , No. 1-2 . - S. 681-683 .
• Rosický B. In memoriam Prof. AS Monchadsky (English) // Folia Parasitol (Praha) .. - 1976. - Vol. 23 , no. 1 . - P. 31-32 .