ROHDENDORF, Boris Borissovich, * 12.07.1904 (St. Petersburg), † 27.11.1977 (Moscow)

Boris Borissovich Rohdendorf was born in St. Petersburg to the family of Boris Ludwig Rohdendorf, a Russian officer. In 1920, Boris Borissovich entered the Moscow University and successfully studied, working at the same time as a preparator at the Zoological Museum. His first scientific paper was published in 1923, while he was still a student, and was on new phasiine species from Turkestan. After graduating, he went deeply into systematics and morphology of Sarcophagidae and prepared issues for the Flies of the Palaearctic Region series. Despite considerable achievements, Rohdendorf’s scientific career was not easy. He spent the first year after his postgraduate studies in Tashkent (Uzbekistan), studying cotton-plant pests and diseases. In 1930, he was invited to the All-Union Plant Protection Institute in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) to study parasitic dipterans and to deal with problems of phytoquarantine and biocontrol. He actively resumed research of the flesh flies in 1932. Four years later, in 1936, A.V. Martynov invited Boris Rohdendorf to a newly established Entomological Laboratory at Paleontological Institute (PIN) in Moscow to commence study of Mesozoic Diptera. That event became a major turning point in Rohdendorf’s career, and the subsequent period became the most fruitful for him. B.B. Rohdendorf had established himself as a well-known dipterist by that time, and his move to PIN motivated broadening of his scientific interests. He continued and extended his studies of dipterous insects, dealt with other entomological problems, such as the system and phylogeny of insects, insect flight, evolution of insect ontogenesis, role of co-evolution of insects and vertebrates, as well as with problems of the zoological nomenclature. The list of his publications includes over 170 entries, including 11 monographs. Achievements of the Laboratory, which B.B. Rohdendorf headed for almost forty years (1938-1977), together with results of his own work on fossils of various insects orders, made him a leader of the World palaeoentomology. B.B. Rohdendorf was elected an Honorary Member of six entomological societies. Under the leadership of B.B. Rohdendorf, the Laboratory of Arthropods became a unique team of palaeontologists that defines the image of the World palaeoentomology.

Selected publications by B.B. Rohdendorf:

• Rohdendorf, B.B. 1939. A new protelytropteron from the Permian of the Urals. Comptes rendus de l’Academie des Sciences de l’URSS 23: 506-508.
  
• Rohdendorf, B.B. 1946. The evolution of the wing and the phylogeny of Oligoneura (Diptera, Nematocera). Transactions of the Paleontological Institute, USSR Academy of Sciences 13 (2): 1-108.
  
• Rohdendorf, B.B. 1949. The evolution and classification of the flight apparatus of insects. Transactions of the Paleontological Institute, USSR Academy of Sciences 16: 1-176.
  
• Rohdendorf, B.B. 1951. Locomotory organs of insects and their origin. Transactions of the Paleontological Institute, USSR Academy of Sciences 35: 1-179.
  
• Rohdendorf, B.B. 1951. Palaeoentomological studies in the USSR. Transactions of the Paleontological Institute, USSR Academy of Sciences 66: 1-100.
  
• Rohdendorf, B.B. 1961. The oldest dipteran infraorders from the Triassic of Middle Asia. Paleontologicheskii Zhurnal 2: 90-100.
  
• Rohdendorf, B.B. et al. 1961. Palaeozoic insects of the Kuznetsk Basin.Transactions of the Paleontological Institute, USSR Academy of Sciences 85: 1-705.
  
• Rohdendorf, B.B., ed. 1962. Osnovy paleontologii. Chlenistonogie. Trakheinye i khelitserovye. Moscow: Akad. Sci. USSR, 560 pp. [in Russian, English translation: Rohdendorf, B.B., ed. 1991. Fundamentals of Palaeontology. Vol. 9. Arthropoda, Tracheata, Chelicerata. New Dehli: Amerind Co., 894 pp.]
• Rohdendorf, B.B. 1964. The historical development of dipterous insects. Transactions of the Paleontological Institute, USSR Academy of Sciences 100: 1-311.
  
• Rohdendorf, B.B. 1967. Trends in the historical development of flesh flies (Diptera, Sarcophagidae). Transactions of the Paleontological Institute, USSR Academy of Sciences 116: 1-92.
  
• Rohdendorf, B.B. 1968. New Mesozoic nemestrinids (Diptera, Nemestrinidae). In: Rohdendorf, B.B., ed., Jurassic insects of Karatau. Moscow: Nauka, pp. 180-189.
  
• Rohdendorf, B.B. 1970. Role of insects in the historical development of terrestrial vertebrates. Paleontologicheskii Zhurnal 1: 10-18.
  
• Rohdendorf, B.B. 1972. The Devonian eopterids are not insects but Crustacea Eumalacostraca. Entomologicheskoe Obozrenie 51 (1): 96-97.
  
• Rohdendorf, B.B. & Zherikhin, V.V. 1974. Palaeontology and nature protection. Priroda (5): 82-91.
  
• Rohdendorf, B.B. 1977. The rationalization of names of higher taxa in zoology. Paleontological Journal 11: 149-155.
  
• Rohdendorf, B.B. & Rasnitsyn, A.P. 1980. The historical development of the Class Insecta. Transactions of the Paleontological Institute, USSR Academy of Sciences 175: 1-269.
  

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