(Russian: Александр Иванович Петрункевич)
was born in Pliski (near Kiev), Imperial Russia.
World famous Arachnologist, Scholar and Professor at Yale, from 1910 to 1944.
He loved poetry and wrote two novels under the pseudonym Alexandr Jan-Ruban. Besides poetry, he also translated Alexander Pushkin into English and Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) into Russian.
One of Alexanders most famous essays was: "The Spider and the Wasp."
He was a founder and president of the Federation of Russian Organizations in the U.S.
He was the president of the Russian Collegiate Institute of New York from 1919 to 1924, which set up to assist in the education of Russian refugees.
He was elected to the National Academy of Science in 1954.
Petrunkevitch met his future wife, an American, Wanda Hartshorn. when they were studying in Germany. They got married in London and came to her home in New Jersey in November 1903.
Prof. Alexander Petrunkevitch, regarded by many in his field as the world's foremost authority on spiders and other arachnids, died today at the Hospital of St. Raphael here. He was 88 years old.
Dr. Petrtinkevitch, professor emeritus of zoology at Yale University, was a familiar figure on the campus long after his retirement from the faculty in 1944, after having served at Yale for almost 34 years. He continued his research and writing at his campus laboratory, sharing his office in the Osborn Zoological Laboratory with more than 500 spiders—bottled, stuffed or living.
His contributions to archnology, the zoological branch that deals with spiders, scorpions andt heir allies, touched many aspects of the subject. He had classified the families of the species and had investigated the vision of spiders, their internal anatomy, their physiology and their mating behavior.
Among his many honors were a number of newly discovered arachnids named after‐ him. He once remarked.that he had no idea how many spider species had been named for him. “I don't like to pay attention to such things,” he said. “Anyway, my name does not lend itself to nomenclature.”
Among the species that received his name were Hydrozetes petrunkevitchi, a Florida fresh‐water mite that lives on aquatic plants; Ruaxphilos petrunkevitchou, a Mexican daddy longlegs; Micaria petrunkevitchi, a webless, ant‐eating spider that resembles an ant, and Peisos petrunkevitchi, a South American shrimp.
Dr. Petrunkevitch — often called Pete on the Yale campus —was a philosopher, a poet and a student of Russian literature and history. He was also an inventor of biological techniques. He was the Petrunkevitch of “Petrunkewitsch's fluid,” the much‐used modification of Gilson's corrosive sublimate fixing fluid. He invented methods of staining now widely used in biological and medical laboratories.
He was the author of the article on spiders in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and wrote the standard encyclopedia on American . spiders, “Catalogue of American Spiders,” a book of 790 pages that was printed in 1911. More than 100 of his works, written in English, Russian or German, have been published.
In a brief biography issued 20 years ago by Yale University, it was noted that Dr. Petrunkevitch was “no one‐sided genius.” His poetry, Slavonic in its expression of romantic melancholy, included a volume entitled “Songs of Love and Sorrow.” He translated English poems into Russian and vice versa. He published prose translations of several of Pushkin's poems to commemorate the centenary of the death of the Russian poet.
Established as a philosophical scientist, Dr. Petrunkevitch wrote, in 1905, “The Freedom of the Will,” a study in materialism.
He achieved still another kind of campus fame with his photographic techniques as applied to spiders. Once he photographed orb‐weaving spiders at work outside the Osborn Laboratory at night, with a battery of floodlights and a special motionpicture camera equipped with a telephoto lens.
His own quarters were renowned — if often avoided — because of the collection of spiders he kept. At times he had more than 180 “magnificent”—the word was his— hairy, dark, live tarantulas in his laboratory. Once there was a cabinet near the middle of the room that contained the bulk of the British Museum's irreplacable collection of fossil arachnids, on loan to the Yale professor.
At Yale he taught a variety of biological subjects, including the natural history of animals, the comparative anatomy of invertebrates, parasitology and arachnology. His graduate course on invertebrate morphology was probably the most comprehensive course of Its type given in any American, university.
It was in 1901, in his doctoral dissertation, that he gave the first substantial proof that the drones of the honeybee are de‐veloped from unfertilized eggs, and that the female bees, either queens or workers, are products of fertilized eggs.
Dr. Petrunkevitch was born in Pliski, Russia, on Dec. 22, 1875, the son of a liberal nobleman. His father, Ivan, urged Czar Alexander II in 1879 to provide a democratic constitution and later, after the 1905 revolution, became a founder and the first president of the Constitutional Democratic party.
The future scientist became a zoological student at the University of Moscow. specializing in insects and producing a brilliant study on the heart of a leaf beetle. When the authorities began to apply pressures against liberal students, he went to Germany to study at the University of Freiburg under the great German biolo‐gist August Weismann.
But the liberal young scientist began to discern unpleasant features in German life, and after his marriage in 1903 to Wanda Hartshorn of Newark, N. J., he came to the United States. He lectured at Harvard. and later established his private laboratory in Short Hills, N. J., serving as honorary curator of arachnology in the American Museum of Natural History.
In 1906 he was appointed acting professor of zoology at the Indiana University and in 1907 he was chairman of the International Congress of Zoologists, in Boston. He went to Yale in 1910 as an instructor in zoology in the Sheffield Scientific School, becoming assistant professor in 1911 and full professor in 1917.
The best‐known social gatherings at Yale tncluded for years the Professor's weekly teas in a cluttered laboratory. These meetings were known first as “Pete's Teas” and after his retirement as “Pete's Teas Emeritus.” Faculty members, students and out‐of‐town visitors attended them to talk over a variety of subjects and drink strong Russian tea made by Dr. Petrunkevitch on a Bunsen burner.
He is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Anna Sala and Mrs. Wanda Korybut, both of Tombstone, Ariz. His first wife died in 1926, and in 1927 he married Miss Myrtle Hallworth. They were divorced three years later.
Alexander Ivanovitch%2C 1875-1964
was born in Pliski (near Kiev), Imperial Russia.
World famous Arachnologist, Scholar and Professor at Yale, from 1910 to 1944.
He loved poetry and wrote two novels under the pseudonym Alexandr Jan-Ruban. Besides poetry, he also translated Alexander Pushkin into English and Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) into Russian.
One of Alexanders most famous essays was: "The Spider and the Wasp."
He was a founder and president of the Federation of Russian Organizations in the U.S.
He was the president of the Russian Collegiate Institute of New York from 1919 to 1924, which set up to assist in the education of Russian refugees.
He was elected to the National Academy of Science in 1954.
Petrunkevitch met his future wife, an American, Wanda Hartshorn. when they were studying in Germany. They got married in London and came to her home in New Jersey in November 1903.
Prof. Alexander Petrunkevitch, regarded by many in his field as the world's foremost authority on spiders and other arachnids, died today at the Hospital of St. Raphael here. He was 88 years old.
Dr. Petrtinkevitch, professor emeritus of zoology at Yale University, was a familiar figure on the campus long after his retirement from the faculty in 1944, after having served at Yale for almost 34 years. He continued his research and writing at his campus laboratory, sharing his office in the Osborn Zoological Laboratory with more than 500 spiders—bottled, stuffed or living.
His contributions to archnology, the zoological branch that deals with spiders, scorpions andt heir allies, touched many aspects of the subject. He had classified the families of the species and had investigated the vision of spiders, their internal anatomy, their physiology and their mating behavior.
Among his many honors were a number of newly discovered arachnids named after‐ him. He once remarked.that he had no idea how many spider species had been named for him. “I don't like to pay attention to such things,” he said. “Anyway, my name does not lend itself to nomenclature.”
Among the species that received his name were Hydrozetes petrunkevitchi, a Florida fresh‐water mite that lives on aquatic plants; Ruaxphilos petrunkevitchou, a Mexican daddy longlegs; Micaria petrunkevitchi, a webless, ant‐eating spider that resembles an ant, and Peisos petrunkevitchi, a South American shrimp.
Dr. Petrunkevitch — often called Pete on the Yale campus —was a philosopher, a poet and a student of Russian literature and history. He was also an inventor of biological techniques. He was the Petrunkevitch of “Petrunkewitsch's fluid,” the much‐used modification of Gilson's corrosive sublimate fixing fluid. He invented methods of staining now widely used in biological and medical laboratories.
He was the author of the article on spiders in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and wrote the standard encyclopedia on American . spiders, “Catalogue of American Spiders,” a book of 790 pages that was printed in 1911. More than 100 of his works, written in English, Russian or German, have been published.
In a brief biography issued 20 years ago by Yale University, it was noted that Dr. Petrunkevitch was “no one‐sided genius.” His poetry, Slavonic in its expression of romantic melancholy, included a volume entitled “Songs of Love and Sorrow.” He translated English poems into Russian and vice versa. He published prose translations of several of Pushkin's poems to commemorate the centenary of the death of the Russian poet.
Established as a philosophical scientist, Dr. Petrunkevitch wrote, in 1905, “The Freedom of the Will,” a study in materialism.
He achieved still another kind of campus fame with his photographic techniques as applied to spiders. Once he photographed orb‐weaving spiders at work outside the Osborn Laboratory at night, with a battery of floodlights and a special motionpicture camera equipped with a telephoto lens.
His own quarters were renowned — if often avoided — because of the collection of spiders he kept. At times he had more than 180 “magnificent”—the word was his— hairy, dark, live tarantulas in his laboratory. Once there was a cabinet near the middle of the room that contained the bulk of the British Museum's irreplacable collection of fossil arachnids, on loan to the Yale professor.
At Yale he taught a variety of biological subjects, including the natural history of animals, the comparative anatomy of invertebrates, parasitology and arachnology. His graduate course on invertebrate morphology was probably the most comprehensive course of Its type given in any American, university.
It was in 1901, in his doctoral dissertation, that he gave the first substantial proof that the drones of the honeybee are de‐veloped from unfertilized eggs, and that the female bees, either queens or workers, are products of fertilized eggs.
Dr. Petrunkevitch was born in Pliski, Russia, on Dec. 22, 1875, the son of a liberal nobleman. His father, Ivan, urged Czar Alexander II in 1879 to provide a democratic constitution and later, after the 1905 revolution, became a founder and the first president of the Constitutional Democratic party.
The future scientist became a zoological student at the University of Moscow. specializing in insects and producing a brilliant study on the heart of a leaf beetle. When the authorities began to apply pressures against liberal students, he went to Germany to study at the University of Freiburg under the great German biolo‐gist August Weismann.
But the liberal young scientist began to discern unpleasant features in German life, and after his marriage in 1903 to Wanda Hartshorn of Newark, N. J., he came to the United States. He lectured at Harvard. and later established his private laboratory in Short Hills, N. J., serving as honorary curator of arachnology in the American Museum of Natural History.
In 1906 he was appointed acting professor of zoology at the Indiana University and in 1907 he was chairman of the International Congress of Zoologists, in Boston. He went to Yale in 1910 as an instructor in zoology in the Sheffield Scientific School, becoming assistant professor in 1911 and full professor in 1917.
The best‐known social gatherings at Yale tncluded for years the Professor's weekly teas in a cluttered laboratory. These meetings were known first as “Pete's Teas” and after his retirement as “Pete's Teas Emeritus.” Faculty members, students and out‐of‐town visitors attended them to talk over a variety of subjects and drink strong Russian tea made by Dr. Petrunkevitch on a Bunsen burner.
He is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Anna Sala and Mrs. Wanda Korybut, both of Tombstone, Ariz. His first wife died in 1926, and in 1927 he married Miss Myrtle Hallworth. They were divorced three years later.
Alexander Ivanovitch%2C 1875-1964
(Russian: Александр Иванович Петрункевич)
was born in Pliski (near Kiev), Imperial Russia.
World famous Arachnologist, Scholar and Professor at Yale, from 1910 to 1944.
He loved poetry and wrote two novels under the pseudonym Alexandr Jan-Ruban. Besides poetry, he also translated Alexander Pushkin into English and Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) into Russian.
One of Alexanders most famous essays was: "The Spider and the Wasp."
He was a founder and president of the Federation of Russian Organizations in the U.S.
He was the president of the Russian Collegiate Institute of New York from 1919 to 1924, which set up to assist in the education of Russian refugees.
He was elected to the National Academy of Science in 1954.
Petrunkevitch met his future wife, an American, Wanda Hartshorn. when they were studying in Germany. They got married in London and came to her home in New Jersey in November 1903.
Prof. Alexander Petrunkevitch, regarded by many in his field as the world's foremost authority on spiders and other arachnids, died today at the Hospital of St. Raphael here. He was 88 years old.
Dr. Petrtinkevitch, professor emeritus of zoology at Yale University, was a familiar figure on the campus long after his retirement from the faculty in 1944, after having served at Yale for almost 34 years. He continued his research and writing at his campus laboratory, sharing his office in the Osborn Zoological Laboratory with more than 500 spiders—bottled, stuffed or living.
His contributions to archnology, the zoological branch that deals with spiders, scorpions andt heir allies, touched many aspects of the subject. He had classified the families of the species and had investigated the vision of spiders, their internal anatomy, their physiology and their mating behavior.
Among his many honors were a number of newly discovered arachnids named after‐ him. He once remarked.that he had no idea how many spider species had been named for him. “I don't like to pay attention to such things,” he said. “Anyway, my name does not lend itself to nomenclature.”
Among the species that received his name were Hydrozetes petrunkevitchi, a Florida fresh‐water mite that lives on aquatic plants; Ruaxphilos petrunkevitchou, a Mexican daddy longlegs; Micaria petrunkevitchi, a webless, ant‐eating spider that resembles an ant, and Peisos petrunkevitchi, a South American shrimp.
Dr. Petrunkevitch — often called Pete on the Yale campus —was a philosopher, a poet and a student of Russian literature and history. He was also an inventor of biological techniques. He was the Petrunkevitch of “Petrunkewitsch's fluid,” the much‐used modification of Gilson's corrosive sublimate fixing fluid. He invented methods of staining now widely used in biological and medical laboratories.
He was the author of the article on spiders in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and wrote the standard encyclopedia on American . spiders, “Catalogue of American Spiders,” a book of 790 pages that was printed in 1911. More than 100 of his works, written in English, Russian or German, have been published.
In a brief biography issued 20 years ago by Yale University, it was noted that Dr. Petrunkevitch was “no one‐sided genius.” His poetry, Slavonic in its expression of romantic melancholy, included a volume entitled “Songs of Love and Sorrow.” He translated English poems into Russian and vice versa. He published prose translations of several of Pushkin's poems to commemorate the centenary of the death of the Russian poet.
Established as a philosophical scientist, Dr. Petrunkevitch wrote, in 1905, “The Freedom of the Will,” a study in materialism.
He achieved still another kind of campus fame with his photographic techniques as applied to spiders. Once he photographed orb‐weaving spiders at work outside the Osborn Laboratory at night, with a battery of floodlights and a special motionpicture camera equipped with a telephoto lens.
His own quarters were renowned — if often avoided — because of the collection of spiders he kept. At times he had more than 180 “magnificent”—the word was his— hairy, dark, live tarantulas in his laboratory. Once there was a cabinet near the middle of the room that contained the bulk of the British Museum's irreplacable collection of fossil arachnids, on loan to the Yale professor.
At Yale he taught a variety of biological subjects, including the natural history of animals, the comparative anatomy of invertebrates, parasitology and arachnology. His graduate course on invertebrate morphology was probably the most comprehensive course of Its type given in any American, university.
It was in 1901, in his doctoral dissertation, that he gave the first substantial proof that the drones of the honeybee are de‐veloped from unfertilized eggs, and that the female bees, either queens or workers, are products of fertilized eggs.
Dr. Petrunkevitch was born in Pliski, Russia, on Dec. 22, 1875, the son of a liberal nobleman. His father, Ivan, urged Czar Alexander II in 1879 to provide a democratic constitution and later, after the 1905 revolution, became a founder and the first president of the Constitutional Democratic party.
The future scientist became a zoological student at the University of Moscow. specializing in insects and producing a brilliant study on the heart of a leaf beetle. When the authorities began to apply pressures against liberal students, he went to Germany to study at the University of Freiburg under the great German biolo‐gist August Weismann.
But the liberal young scientist began to discern unpleasant features in German life, and after his marriage in 1903 to Wanda Hartshorn of Newark, N. J., he came to the United States. He lectured at Harvard. and later established his private laboratory in Short Hills, N. J., serving as honorary curator of arachnology in the American Museum of Natural History.
In 1906 he was appointed acting professor of zoology at the Indiana University and in 1907 he was chairman of the International Congress of Zoologists, in Boston. He went to Yale in 1910 as an instructor in zoology in the Sheffield Scientific School, becoming assistant professor in 1911 and full professor in 1917.
The best‐known social gatherings at Yale tncluded for years the Professor's weekly teas in a cluttered laboratory. These meetings were known first as “Pete's Teas” and after his retirement as “Pete's Teas Emeritus.” Faculty members, students and out‐of‐town visitors attended them to talk over a variety of subjects and drink strong Russian tea made by Dr. Petrunkevitch on a Bunsen burner.
He is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Anna Sala and Mrs. Wanda Korybut, both of Tombstone, Ariz. His first wife died in 1926, and in 1927 he married Miss Myrtle Hallworth. They were divorced three years later.
Alexander Ivanovitch%2C 1875-1964
was born in Pliski (near Kiev), Imperial Russia.
World famous Arachnologist, Scholar and Professor at Yale, from 1910 to 1944.
He loved poetry and wrote two novels under the pseudonym Alexandr Jan-Ruban. Besides poetry, he also translated Alexander Pushkin into English and Lord Byron (1788 - 1824) into Russian.
One of Alexanders most famous essays was: "The Spider and the Wasp."
He was a founder and president of the Federation of Russian Organizations in the U.S.
He was the president of the Russian Collegiate Institute of New York from 1919 to 1924, which set up to assist in the education of Russian refugees.
He was elected to the National Academy of Science in 1954.
Petrunkevitch met his future wife, an American, Wanda Hartshorn. when they were studying in Germany. They got married in London and came to her home in New Jersey in November 1903.
Prof. Alexander Petrunkevitch, regarded by many in his field as the world's foremost authority on spiders and other arachnids, died today at the Hospital of St. Raphael here. He was 88 years old.
Dr. Petrtinkevitch, professor emeritus of zoology at Yale University, was a familiar figure on the campus long after his retirement from the faculty in 1944, after having served at Yale for almost 34 years. He continued his research and writing at his campus laboratory, sharing his office in the Osborn Zoological Laboratory with more than 500 spiders—bottled, stuffed or living.
His contributions to archnology, the zoological branch that deals with spiders, scorpions andt heir allies, touched many aspects of the subject. He had classified the families of the species and had investigated the vision of spiders, their internal anatomy, their physiology and their mating behavior.
Among his many honors were a number of newly discovered arachnids named after‐ him. He once remarked.that he had no idea how many spider species had been named for him. “I don't like to pay attention to such things,” he said. “Anyway, my name does not lend itself to nomenclature.”
Among the species that received his name were Hydrozetes petrunkevitchi, a Florida fresh‐water mite that lives on aquatic plants; Ruaxphilos petrunkevitchou, a Mexican daddy longlegs; Micaria petrunkevitchi, a webless, ant‐eating spider that resembles an ant, and Peisos petrunkevitchi, a South American shrimp.
Dr. Petrunkevitch — often called Pete on the Yale campus —was a philosopher, a poet and a student of Russian literature and history. He was also an inventor of biological techniques. He was the Petrunkevitch of “Petrunkewitsch's fluid,” the much‐used modification of Gilson's corrosive sublimate fixing fluid. He invented methods of staining now widely used in biological and medical laboratories.
He was the author of the article on spiders in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and wrote the standard encyclopedia on American . spiders, “Catalogue of American Spiders,” a book of 790 pages that was printed in 1911. More than 100 of his works, written in English, Russian or German, have been published.
In a brief biography issued 20 years ago by Yale University, it was noted that Dr. Petrunkevitch was “no one‐sided genius.” His poetry, Slavonic in its expression of romantic melancholy, included a volume entitled “Songs of Love and Sorrow.” He translated English poems into Russian and vice versa. He published prose translations of several of Pushkin's poems to commemorate the centenary of the death of the Russian poet.
Established as a philosophical scientist, Dr. Petrunkevitch wrote, in 1905, “The Freedom of the Will,” a study in materialism.
He achieved still another kind of campus fame with his photographic techniques as applied to spiders. Once he photographed orb‐weaving spiders at work outside the Osborn Laboratory at night, with a battery of floodlights and a special motionpicture camera equipped with a telephoto lens.
His own quarters were renowned — if often avoided — because of the collection of spiders he kept. At times he had more than 180 “magnificent”—the word was his— hairy, dark, live tarantulas in his laboratory. Once there was a cabinet near the middle of the room that contained the bulk of the British Museum's irreplacable collection of fossil arachnids, on loan to the Yale professor.
At Yale he taught a variety of biological subjects, including the natural history of animals, the comparative anatomy of invertebrates, parasitology and arachnology. His graduate course on invertebrate morphology was probably the most comprehensive course of Its type given in any American, university.
It was in 1901, in his doctoral dissertation, that he gave the first substantial proof that the drones of the honeybee are de‐veloped from unfertilized eggs, and that the female bees, either queens or workers, are products of fertilized eggs.
Dr. Petrunkevitch was born in Pliski, Russia, on Dec. 22, 1875, the son of a liberal nobleman. His father, Ivan, urged Czar Alexander II in 1879 to provide a democratic constitution and later, after the 1905 revolution, became a founder and the first president of the Constitutional Democratic party.
The future scientist became a zoological student at the University of Moscow. specializing in insects and producing a brilliant study on the heart of a leaf beetle. When the authorities began to apply pressures against liberal students, he went to Germany to study at the University of Freiburg under the great German biolo‐gist August Weismann.
But the liberal young scientist began to discern unpleasant features in German life, and after his marriage in 1903 to Wanda Hartshorn of Newark, N. J., he came to the United States. He lectured at Harvard. and later established his private laboratory in Short Hills, N. J., serving as honorary curator of arachnology in the American Museum of Natural History.
In 1906 he was appointed acting professor of zoology at the Indiana University and in 1907 he was chairman of the International Congress of Zoologists, in Boston. He went to Yale in 1910 as an instructor in zoology in the Sheffield Scientific School, becoming assistant professor in 1911 and full professor in 1917.
The best‐known social gatherings at Yale tncluded for years the Professor's weekly teas in a cluttered laboratory. These meetings were known first as “Pete's Teas” and after his retirement as “Pete's Teas Emeritus.” Faculty members, students and out‐of‐town visitors attended them to talk over a variety of subjects and drink strong Russian tea made by Dr. Petrunkevitch on a Bunsen burner.
He is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Anna Sala and Mrs. Wanda Korybut, both of Tombstone, Ariz. His first wife died in 1926, and in 1927 he married Miss Myrtle Hallworth. They were divorced three years later.
Alexander Ivanovitch%2C 1875-1964
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