Gambaryan, Pyotr Petrovich

Peter Petrovich Gambaryan was born on April 18, 1925 in France, in Paris, where his father, Peter Pavlovich Gambaryan, studied at the Sorbonne. In 1929, the family returned to Armenia, his father worked as an assistant professor at the Geological Institute of the Armenian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, but in 1933 he died tragically in a plane crash near Tbilisi. Mother Petr Petrovich - Natalya Petrovna Gambaryan (girlhood - Kafieva), left after the death of her husband with six children in her arms, earned a living with French lessons.

Peter, being the third child in the family, essentially becomes the backbone of a large family, but does not forget about studying. Having graduated from school as an external student, she immediately enters the second year of the All-Union Veterinary Institute in Yerevan, continuing to combine her studies with work in exploration parties. Peter Gambaryan soon transferred to the Faculty of Biology of Yerevan State University , which he graduated in 1946.

In 1949 he defended his thesis, topic: "Adaptive features of the anterior extremity of the mountain blind ( Spalax leucodon nehringi Satunin)" at the Zoological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences .

He was the head of the museum of the Institute of Zoology of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR . In 1961, he became an employee of the ZIN mammals laboratory.

In 1969 he defended his doctoral dissertation, topic: “Running of mammals. Adaptive features of the organs of motion "

Since 1984 - permanent head of the Department of Functional Morphology of the laboratory, and since 1986 - its leading researcher.

The author of more than 100 scientific papers (including five monographs) published in many domestic and foreign publications.

The first book “Rat”, published in 1955, when the author was thirty years old, was devoted to the systematics, ecology, and anatomy of rats and still serves as one of the basic teaching aids for students, graduate students, and novice researchers of various biomedical specialties.

Thanks to the efforts of Gambaryan in 1958, Khosrov's forests, consisting of 8 separate territories, were officially declared a single reserve. The Khosrov Reserve is located south-east of Yerevan, in the south-western part of the Geghama volcanic highlands, in the basins of the Azat and Vedi rivers. The reserve has a rather complex terrain with amazing landscapes. More than 1800 plant species grow here, 156 of which are considered rare, 146 are listed in the Red Book of Armenia. Among the inhabitants of the reserve - more than 30 species of reptiles, 142 species of birds, 55 species of mammals. Currently, the Khosrov Reserve is the habitat of the Central Asian leopard.

Comparative morphofunctional studies of P.P. Gambaryan cover a wide range of forms of mammals and illuminate a wide range of problems of their adaptive evolution. Among them, the work on studying the transformations of the musculoskeletal system in connection with adaptations to digging activity, running and swimming is especially distinguished.

I taught a course on comparative anatomy of vertebrates and theriology at Yerevan and Leningrad State Universities.

In November 1978, at the invitation of the Cuban Academy of Sciences, as part of an expedition of the Institute of Evolutionary Morphology and Animal Ecology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, headed by Academician V.E. Sokolov , he took part in the capture of the Trichechus manatus (Sirenia) manatee in the waters of the Batabano Bay off the coast of the Zapata Peninsula . After that, a series of neurophysiological experiments were carried out at the Institute of Zoology of the Cuban Academy of Sciences and a number of samples were taken for histological and electron microscopic studies. Soon after mothballing, the captured specimen of manatee (ZIN No. 31795) was transported by plane to the Zoological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, on the basis of which it was further comprehensively studied.

Monographs

• “Adaptive features of the organs of movement of burrowing mammals” (1960).
• monograph “Running of mammals” (1972) (The work covers in detail the mammals' biomechanics, the biomechanics of their terrestrial locomotion, adaptation to running in ungulates, proboscis, carnivores, rabbits, rodents and marsupials. The generalizing section gives a classification of the methods and forms of running mammals (over 200 species from 6 orders).
• the collective monograph "Bison" (1979) opens a new zoological series: "Species of the fauna of the USSR and neighboring countries"
• monograph "European red-backed vole" (1981) the second issue in the series "Species of the fauna of the USSR and neighboring countries"
• monograph “Evolution of the facial muscles of mammals” (1989) (based on the study of more than 100 species from 12 orders of mammals and a wide analysis of literature data, the main ways of rearrangements of their facial muscles were determined)

Wife - Anna Mkrtychevna Oganjanyan, worked as an employee of the Zoological Institute of the ArmSSR.

The eldest son - George Petrovich, graduated from Leningrad State University and became an employee of the Leningrad Zoo.

The youngest son, Stepan Petrovich, a physiologist, worked for a long time in Germany, and currently conducts research at the Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences and at the same time gives lectures at St. Petersburg State University and the Polytechnic University.

One of the cousins, Maria Stepanovna Gambaryan , is a world-famous pianist.

• The medal "For Labor Valor" (4.01.1955) - for the length of service and excellent work.
• Prize of the Moscow Society of Naturalists (1973) - for a series of works on locomotion of mammals.
• Prize named after A. N. Severtsov (1981) - for a series of works on the theme "The evolution of mammalian locomotion".

• Gambaryan, Pyotr Petrovich on the official website of the RAS
• On the 90th anniversary of Pyotr Petrovich Gambaryan (neopr.) (Pdf). zin.ru. Date of treatment December 17, 2016.
• Theriology Laboratory (neopr.) . zin.ru. Date of treatment December 18, 2016.