When I became interested in insects

It all started with a non-breeding female who was seven years old when she was bred from her pupa in 1973.
As a child, he collected a collection (while serving in the army, it was thrown out). Directly in the army, I collected something (I served in the Chita region, and there are completely different insects).
And this selection was thrown out of the capter-the people are like this (they just laughed at it).
In 1986, I left the army and had a break until 1990, when I caught a swallowtail in the Moscow region (by the way, I keep this clumsily straightened specimen as the first insect) and since then " it's gone." True, for 10 years I have been mainly engaged in beetles.

This post was edited by vasiliy-feoktistov - 07.12.2009 17: 48

As my relatives say, even at the age of five, I had frogs in my pocket, and insects (as I remember) I started fishing in the summer in the village with my grandfather. Went out into the garden and ...fieria of colors and life forms...mind-boggling smells of blooming plants until Grandma calls for food. You sit there eating a pie with potatoes, fried onions and milk - and a dozen bronzes (crawled out of your pockets) are beating against the kitchen window, and a cat afigevshaya from the blatant insolence of insects is staring at the window. Actually, in my youth I was a fisherman and hunter, and only when I realized that I would not learn anything new from this, I began to collect insects after the army on the instructions of the PSPU Zoology Department. I also got carried away with the memorable July afternoon of 1989, when I and my two cousins selflessly caught fantastic perelivnits on a forest lane... Then I remember how in the forest with a net and a stick they caught gorgeous ribbon girls... the technology was simple, in the right hand of the net - in the left a stick, knocking it on wood and if a butterfly takes off, you catch it. Everything was fine until our senior comrade Alexander Nikolaevich (landscape artist) knocked on the trunk where there was a hornet's nest... you should have seen him run faster... Providing first aid to the victim...Laughter through tears...
In general, in 2002, the whole Penza branch of REO gathered-friends and colleagues, so we turned around.

Genes take their toll.Some of their ancestors were farmers,some were hunters.Mendel's Law(everyone read it at school,but didn't pay much attention to it).In the third generation, heredity is most pronounced.My great-grandfather was a veterinarian-the city of Khvalynsk-north of the Saratov region, on the banks of the Volga.Natives of the Cossacks-surname-Cossack regiment-the writer Tolstoy Alexey in the trilogy "Walking in torment" is mentioned. Cossacks-who are the Cossacks?People fled from the tsars and the authorities far away to the Don and Kuban.Every dashing people gathered there. Lived.What did they live on?Farming, hunting, fishing.Constant skirmishes, fights with newcomers-Turks, Crimean Tatars, Caucasians, Nukers from Persian and Mediterranean merchants. In short-the COSSACKS.
I started catching butterflies in the first grade of school (1978).Hunting, fishing, traveling.Next to my nine-story building, there was a gorgeous ravine and through it Sokolovaya Gora.Butterflies were caught by patsanem-Iphiclides podalirius, bedstraw hawk moth (galii), Inachis io, Polyomatus, N. polychloros, V. atalanta, P. c-album-delight for us then was.
They themselves got carried away-at the same time 7 people from neighboring nine-story buildings.But Le Mult was revered before that.Before my eyes then were Le Multe, a collection in the Museum of local lore.After a couple of years, we just met people who were seriously engaged in sports.:Kumakov and amateur adults.

It was similar.Hornet-heh, heh, not heh, heh, heh.The hornet is a serious thing.The most serious of fighter-bombers in the middle latitude(its poison occupies a serious place among toxins).About the poisonous ones in the middle zone.In the middle zone, they are dangerous when biting (stinging) for humans only.:a snake-viper (the toxin affects the kidneys), and a bee (almost insignificant), a wasp(worse), a tarantula spider(the temperature is like a hornet, but it doesn't hurt).HORNET-THEME.Caught butterflies on 10 dachnaya and hornet dolbanul man-yelled-not long-consciousness began to lose-dragged(brought) to the highway and to the hospital-waited-after 4 hours only came out white.
We ask him:what is a hornet bite like in terms of strength and sensation?The guy answers:have you ever been hit in the leg with a crowbar? In Turkmenistan, in March-April 1991, scorpions were caught-they were pulled out from under the stones in the heat.A man sat down to smoke on a rock-lit up and yelled-the smoke from the first puff came out of his mouth-he still does not close his mouth and rotates his eyes-this is the result after the Central Asian scorpion.He had a fever for two days,then ran great for Elphinstonia transcaspica, E. tomyris,Zegris fausti. In the western Pamirs, near Rushan, a small wasp hit my partner, a peasant, on a scree-he became so ill that the two of them barely got down to the road-the border guards car was torn up and taken to the hospital.The man was sitting in the car and it was clear-from the pain does not think anything.The hospital in Rushan (the hospital-three Tajik people-all the staff) said that the bite of this wasp is really very serious-they know it, mesny stung.The next day we just picked him up from the hospital.

Insect bites are another topic! By the way, our Sanych then managed to bite as many as three hornets in the head! You should have seen how he struggled - we cauterized the bites with alcohol, soaked them with ammonia, doused the poor guy's head with water, and unsoldered him. At the Goltsovka station from the forest, he was taken on a Java motorcycle, tied with a jacket to the driver (so as not to fall). Only in the evening (to catch butterflies at night) after a dream-half-oblivion, he recovered more or less. The bite spots were gone for more than a month... But, in practice, a large black-and-red road wasp bites the hornet more strongly in the Volga region. The sensations ARE INDESCRIBABLE...

We caught this year in August at the light in an oak grove in the Kasimov district. The goal was catocals, promissas, and sponsas. A bunch of hornets flew into the light, and there was a nest nearby. When they began to curl up, the hornets were swarming on the screen and everywhere in the grass. I bent down to touch the throttle of the lamp - hot or not-and then my darling bit me in the finger. Of course, the finger was swollen and numb, it was painful, but nothing more. By morning, everything was gone, but it felt like a common wasp bite, only twice as strong.

This post was edited by vicgrr - 22.12.2009 01: 08

... ... ...
But, in practice, a large black-and-red road wasp bites the hornet more strongly in the Volga region. The sensations ARE INDESCRIBABLE...

This is Batozonellus lacerticida. I specifically tried - I agree-it is INDESCRIBABLE...

This post was edited by Papaver - 12/22/2009 01: 23

I've been interested in nature for as long as I can remember. I started collecting the collection at the age of 10 (1995), after the school library allowed us to borrow books "for everyone". Previously, they didn't give it to us - they were afraid (and rightly so) that we would spoil them. A remote, wild village school. So in my hands was the book of Efetov and Budashkin "Butterflies of the Crimea". One trouble is that the vandals left only the last notebook out of the colored inserts-lichens, bears. Later (in 8th grade) I was given Cornelio's book for a week. I spent the whole week making sketches and excerpts. Until I graduated from high school, this was my only "literature". Unfortunately, most of my children's training camps were ruined by my ignorance and lack of advice from experienced people (there were simply no such people!). Biology was taught to us by a chemistry teacher, and then (human biology) by a physical education teacher. They sent us a young ornithologist once, but she left a month later. My parents didn't really help me with my hobby, but they didn't interfere with it either. And many thanks to them for this! For urban children, entomology is a strange hobby (according to "ordinary" people), and for rural children it is generally schizophrenic! We need to cook firewood for the winter, mow the grass for rabbits, and he catches butterflies! But they didn't bother me. Probably - this is what their (parents') help looked like. So I'm not complaining. The only thing that is a pity - ruined by stupidity copies. For example (many people won't believe it, and I wouldn't believe it if it wasn't for me) - once (1995 or 1996-I don't remember anymore) on an anthill under an old willow tree (!!!) In the village of Chapaevo (steppe Crimea, Krasnogvardeysky district), I found a blue ribbon beetle! More precisely, there were wings and a half-eaten body lying around. I took the wings, but then I thought I'd catch a new one and threw it away... And when I found out WHAT I threw away, there was no limit to the tragedy... So I still haven't caught her... And all because of the lack of elementary literature... And there are many such examples! And now these children's finds with a black ribbon will go to the memory through life...
Literature became easier only after finishing school, when I got to Simferopol (2002) .

Stanno write LIPARUS,"...if not for this site, not forumchani with photos of collections, reports on fishing and other things, then I would have already spat on this hobby for a year...". You know, I think that at the first opportunity you will spit on this occupation, because for you it is not serious. I've been catching butterflies for 15 years now, and believe me, it's all in my blood, part of my body.

In high school, I gave up collecting for a while, because there was no butterfly literature, but there was some ornithology. I just got tired of catching things that I couldn't name more accurately than "golubyanka" or "pestryanka". There was no way to do identification, so I grew hawk moth from caterpillars (then I got a special buzz from this), but I stopped catching it. He was a bird watcher. Later, he returned to entomology, when literature became easier.

This post was edited by palvasru4ko - 29.01.2010 09: 56

By the way, I was greatly influenced by the colorful publication "Insects of the Red Book of the USSR". The stories are wonderful... I remember how at night I dreamed that I would take and find the nutcracker Parrace, which no one had caught for 40 years...

In 2002-2003, I confidently searched for Cecchiniola platyscelidina... At the same time, I didn't even have a picture with its normal image - I was guided by a verbal description! Yes... I remember the saying: "Not all patients were killed by the war" ...

S. Chapaevo (steppe Crimea, Krasnogvardeysky district) discovered a blue ribbon!

Given that you have an oak plantation there, you can assume local brood. So you can try to hang the bait.

Given that you have an oak plantation there, you can assume local brood. So you can try to hang the bait.

There is a landing, and I went there for three seasons (1998-2000) several times and did not see a SINGLE ribbon at all. In Chapaevo itself, nupta, elocata, and hymenaea are quite common. Every year I met with Coracala puerpera. Fraxini doesn't. True, the methods were the most primitive-I knocked on the trunks of oak trees with a stick and only tried to catch the light there twice - a sheet + a lantern and feeding mosquitoes with my own blood for three hours (what age, such methods). But I didn't catch anything...

It turns out interesting! MANY collectors and specialists. entomologists (or rather lepidopterologists) began to catch/collect / study butterflies precisely from the MOST INTERESTING family of HAWK MOTH!!?
How much indescribable delight and pride there was with the capture of new / rare species! In addition to fishing for light, at the end of May, in the countryside, in the evening we went (me and my two cousins) with flashlights, nets, boxes and an eye syringe with alcohol-to the thicket of a cracker (white soapberry...). You squat and look out for a hawk moth feeding on a flowering plant against the sky-turn on the lantern, wave a net, a prick, and a butterfly neatly impaled on entomological pin No. 3 (and fixed with other pins on the sides). So proserpine was caught for the first time in the region... Then my fellow student, using exactly this technology, caught proserpine in another area on a bruise... My brothers in the surrounding area were also considered cranks (this is not a Cossack business...), but they had an iron excuse - not for the sake of self-indulgence, but for the bratelnik in the pedagogical institute - for science!!

I decided to write about myself – how I became interested in insects, but the whole autobiography came out. Please don't delete this crazy student's nonsense.

Stage 1-Early childhood
In elementary school, I was very ill and therefore read a lot, apparently even then I read A. E. Bram's "Animal Life". I was particularly interested in the invertebrate volume, but until 6th grade, I was no more interested in it than I was in dinosaurs and planets.

Stage 2-Choosing
a class between the 5th and 6th grades:
An amazing trip to the village of Pady, the beauty of Khopr and the grandeur of the ancient forest, rich fish soup and delicious pancakes: all this is well remembered. It was probably during this period that I fell in love with nature, and I firmly decided that I would become a biologist, not an astronaut.
Summer between 6th and 7th grade:
I would like to thank my biology teacher Alexey V. Gorbachev, who gave me the most interesting task for the summer - to collect a collection of insects, and my late father, who helped me collect it. This collection included insects, about each of which you can write a separate story. A huge scolium of maculata, which was brought to me in a kefir bag, anax-imperator dragonfly, which flew into the car by itself, smelly beauty, zorka and swallowtail butterflies, a majestic rhinoceros beetle and a "tiny" copra. Having received a well-deserved "5-ku" and passed the collection to school, I, however, already knew for sure – I would become an entomologist.
For the next few years, I sat in the library's reading room reading a huge, thick book, Animal Life: Invertebrates (the only book about Insects in our library), and began reading The Young Naturalist, which often included articles about insects. The classifications of insects that I invented back then seem very funny to me now.

Stage 3-Computerization
This was the case until December 2003, when they bought me a computer. I got the Internet in the summer of 2004, and then it all started – there was a huge amount of information, books, photos, articles, etc. on the Internet. It was around this time that I started making my own website about insects and started thinking about my own collection. I chose Zhukov when I got to the ZIN website "Beetles and coleopterologists". But I started collecting insects normally only in 2006, when I accidentally fell under a swarm of May beetles in a sanatorium and couldn't resist the temptation =)
Now I study at the Agrarian University and dream of going on an expedition)
End.
I. A. Zabaluev, 2010

I had no idea that there would be such a huge percentage of people interested in insects from early childhood. I was madly interested in the "weapon theme" from the moment I learned to run fast and far and climb where I wasn't asked. Then I first saw an old bullet (from the Second World War) and this thing fascinated me, just as insects fascinated many in this topic (in early childhood).
Since then, I have collected finds of bullets, shell casings, grenades, mines, shrapnel, barrels, etc. This is somewhere from 5-6 years old to 17.
Insects then almost did not notice, i.e. did not "see" their monstrous variety, did not notice… And from the animals, I was fascinated by snakes, which I also tried to "collect" (fortunately, I was able to do this only with snakes).

Until the age of 17, I dreamed of serving in the army, being a soldier... to fight. I finished school at the age of 17 and went to work in a fishing artel, as a fisherman (they turned a blind eye to my underage age). Worked for a year (14 hours a day and seven days a week-during the season) ... and I changed my mind: I cooled down to weapons, but "warmed up" to biology. I became interested in the question of the origin and essence of life – I entered the biofactory faculty with an eye on the department. biochemistry.
And at the summer practice on zoo. invertebrates (after the 1st course), I was interested in Barber's traps and what information they provide, and the variety of insects, of course. I decided to study herpetobiont coleoptera agrocenoses as a hobby, and specialize in the Department. biochemistry. And so it was until the 3rd year. And on the day when it was necessary to write an application for specialization, at this or that department, I suddenly changed my mind and went to the Department of Zoology.

What an interesting topic. I read it with such pleasure. I became interested in insects from the age of 6. In elementary school, all the children in the yards played football, and I was constantly stuck in the library reading room. My father was an avid fisherman and often took me with him. True, I was completely indifferent to fishing and spent all my time collecting beetles and other insects. While traveling, he began to pay attention to birds and became so interested in it that he spent the last 12 years studying birds. This spring, I decided to test the macro on a new camera and took off... Forgotten impressions were recalled, the old excitement and interest were awakened. For 2 months now, there have been more beetles per fan. I am very glad that there is such a wonderful forum. I am sure that it has already helped many people to remember the once forgotten hobby, for which I express my gratitude to all the forum participants.

Also, like many people, I became interested in insects from a very early age. I remember how in preschool age I dried butterflies like leaves in books(horror!). I began to straighten it in the second grade. All the windowsills were lined with cans with caterpillars, oddly enough, the breeding was successful, my pets never died. And recently I decided to try again, but nothing works. The only books I had at that time were Mamaev's determinant and Panfilov's Life of Insects, and of course I read everything that was available in libraries. Le Multe's book and Kurentsov's determinant shocked me. Kurentsov's book was autographed by the author (he comes from our area), so no matter how much I begged, they didn't give me a home permit. So I had to spend hours rewriting interesting places in the reading room. As a child, I was absolutely sure that I would be a biologist, or an entomologist, or an ornithologist(I was also very interested). Parents did not prevent the hobby, but also did not consider it serious. As a result, I became neither one nor the other, although I love my work(far from biology). True, sometimes it seems that I don't live my own life, but nothing can be changed. The passion remained forever, just as strong. There is a small collection (collected along the way and in fits and starts). exploring the area. I opened the forum a year ago, and I've only been reading it all this time. Many thanks to all its organizers and participants, for the joy of at least watching the life of entomologists, for a lot of interesting pages.

This post was edited by Kallima - 28.09.2010 10: 59

I became interested in insects from an early age. In the library of our district, I reread all the books on insects. Marikovsky, Plavilshchikov, Khalifman, Fabre are forever etched in the memory. And Darrell, of course! Since traveling, hiking, and catching beetles, spiders, and animals are an integral part of my life. I started collecting the collection at the age of 7, and I pricked insects right alive and did not spread them out. Then things got better - by the age of ten I already had a collection of more than 500 species. And I collected all of them: butterflies, beetles, flies, webs, bedbugs, etc. In those years, I managed to meet a carpenter bee and an acrid-very atypical species for our region (Kostroma), then I never met them again.
Those were good times. My friend and I went hunting for "noses" almost every day - that's what we called insects in the forest, or in the meadows. Then the collection fucked up. In high school and as a student, he was engaged in science-ground beetles of agrocenoses.
After uni, I went to work in the hunting department, then in the Department of Natural Resources and entomology somehow forgot.
But just recently, I returned to my roots - with new strength, opportunities, and desires.
The forum, by the way, is excellent, it helps a lot!

Akrida in the Kostroma region??? We are looking for it in the Penza steppes, but unfortunately NOT. And so much further north... Specialists in orthoptera - where is the current border of the acrid's range in the European part of Russia ???

It all started with a non-breeding female who was seven years old when she was bred from her pupa in 1973.
As a child, he collected a collection (while serving in the army, it was thrown out). Directly in the army, I collected something (I served in the Chita region, and there are completely different insects).
And this selection was thrown out of the capter-the people are like this (they just laughed at it).
In 1986, I left the army and had a break until 1990, when I caught a swallowtail in the Moscow region (by the way, I keep this clumsily straightened specimen as the first insect) and since then " it's gone." True, for 10 years I have been mainly engaged in beetles.

RELATED BIOGRAPHY.
Borzya-Chita in the army also collected

what I can add is that almost everything is the same for everyone.
we lived in a new area of the city and there were large vacant lots at the back of the houses.
there was an abundance of insects and all sorts of animals.so my brothers took me with them .
By the way, I found a few photos from my childhood. I apologize for the quality.

Pictures:

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Akrida in the Kostroma region??? We are looking for it in the Penza steppes, but unfortunately NOT. And so much further north... Specialists in orthoptera - where is the current border of the acrid's range in the European part of Russia ???

I am not an expert on straight lines, I saw akrida only once, in the vicinity of Yevpatoria (Crimea), however, in the mass.

I think that points for the countries adjacent to Russia will also be useful.

This post was edited by Pirx - 29.01.2011 11: 29

He suffered from insectophobia as a child. My mother began to "teach" me about ants and soldiers... So I got carried away.

Got carried away from the age of 9. I went to visit my grandmother in the village of Dnepropetrovsk region . I started with butterflies and for the last 15 years I've been using beetles. Once the collection was devoured by kozheaters, I had to catch everything again. All nights in the village I sat under a lamp, and also wandered with a flashlight under a pear tree where scoops flew to the fermented fruit.

Kept hornets in the dorm(in the room). My friends didn't always understand...

And I, when in 14 years with krasotelom in the forest met, and then the book "Insects of the USSR" bought. And all of them are beetles for life. If only they could still be understood from the inside!

BEETLES are fantastic creatures. External skeleton. How can it even fly, run, or swim? You can put a live person on a pin - he lives for a month until all the moisture from him dries up (and a person with a crowbar? ) And if the beetle is enlarged to the size of a tank? They will never look you in the eye, they are as incomprehensible as life itself.

And all of them are beetles for life.

Butterflies - pop, beetles-heavy metal!

Bugs talk... Teachers constantly bring students interested in entomology to my department, who stays and who leaves... A few years ago, the headmistress of our library brought her granddaughter, Roma (surnamed Pitersky), to see me. So the insect lover is just fanatical, reads a lot, has a good memory, and teachers are often just afraid to ask him (they often don't know what this little runt can tell you).
So, one day in September, I run into the headmistress in the main building and she tells me the following story, waving her hands and waving her hands every minute.
In the summer, they went with their grandson to have a rest in one of the Crimean sanatoriums, and Roma spent all day swimming in the sea and catching all sorts of animals that came his way. His pipe dream was the Crimean ground beetle, about which he had read so much, but he still did not come across a rare animal. One day we go from lunch (Grandma tells us affectionately) and lo and behold, a man and his son are sitting on the benches and looking at the bank ... a magnificent specimen of the Crimean ground beetle! Roma, like that cop, made a stand and, without taking his eyes off such a coveted insect, sat down on the bench, among the lucky owners of the rarity. He began from afar, talking about animals, birds and insects, their usefulness and rarity, and as he left, he casually said: "But you and this bug will be slowed down at the border!" The man was touched by the knowledge of such a young talent was wary - " With what kind of guy did you take that they wouldn't let us pass!??" To which Roma peremptorily stated -" So little that they will not miss - they will also be fined for the Red Book type of beetle that you illegally want to export abroad of Ukraine"!! And slowly, solidly walked with me (says the grandmother) along the alley. As soon as we moved away from the shop, lo and behold, the grandson sniffed behind the nearest bush and to that shop. Grandma's mouth dropped open in surprise... Roma hid behind a bush near the bench and waited for the same, that the man weighed the offspring of a good "bream" forced to release the beetle on the lawn. As soon as they left, Romka lightning on the lawn and grab the ground beetle!
I shared with the headmistress the ingenuity of her grandson, and I thought to myself... "Yes, this one will go far" ...

So, first the ground beetle, and then the holotypes of graduate students to steal

Butterflies - pop, beetles-heavy metal!

Smoke on the water, fire in the sky!!! I'm sorry - not quite sober...

This post was edited by Dmitrich - 24.02.2011 21: 09

My fascination with butterflies began when I was eleven months old, when I accidentally ate a cabbage patch while looking at it. Later, reading books about insects, I discovered new interesting worlds and realized that entomology is very exciting for me. The initiator of the scientific approach to the study of butterflies was my biology teacher. She offered me a summer assignment – collecting a collection of insects. I was very interested and fascinated by this activity. Now I am 14 years old, in June I will be 15, I am studying in the eighth grade, but despite this, I am already writing a small research paper, which, according to experts, pulls on the thesis of a fifth-year biofactor. In the future, I want to enter the biofactory faculty and study lepidopterology.

Love insects - it's from birth=)

I'll also tell you about myself. I first became interested in insects when I was about eight years old. I then lived in a private house at the foot of a hill overgrown with oak trees.It was this hill that became the place where I caught my first insects. I collected everything from magpies and earwigs to spiders and butterflies. Collected in jars and looked at in his "laboratory", an inactive dressing room.At that time, I didn't know anything about entomology until I got to unatka, where I was shown what it is and how it is done.I've forgotten a lot, and now I'm trying to catch up.

I'll tell you about myself.

My first memorable encounter with an insect was huge (well, I thought so at the time) pine zlatki on a stack of logs. The smaller a person is, the bigger the insects seem to him (which is understandable) - there is still a feeling that these zlatki are already a finger long . It was when I (according to my mother's assurances) was barely 2 years old.

The next meeting was held in 4 years. It's a summer day, the sun is bright, the crowd is so huge... and this miracle cabbage flies . Of course, I gave chase. Of course, I didn't catch it. But on the other hand, I caught a chipped three-liter jar in the grass, which I slashed my shin to the bone. As I ran home, my vision darkened. I was lucky that my parents were at home - they provided first aid very quickly. 2 weeks after this first "catch" of mine, I caught various glitches while lying in bed: ships with inflated sails floated in through the windows, a herd of cows grazed by the bed, or something else... But after 2 weeks I went outside, fell in the grass, and again-insects . A crowd of ants dragged an actively resisting caterpillar.

Meaningful interest, of course, came much later - between the 6th and 8th grades of school. A huge role in the formation of this interest was played by students and teachers of the University of Nizhny Novgorod, as well as the Nizhny Novgorod collector Yuri Borisovich Kosarev, who passed away at the age of 67. UNN students who came to our region to study rare birds brought various printed materials on rarities, including postcards with images of rare butterflies. In the library of the school where I studied, there was a book by Kozlov about how to collect insects - so I got my first net. Insects were pricked on ordinary sewing needles, nailed on plywood and hung in this form on the wall. Needless to say, this "collection" was completely eaten up in the first winter?: D

The following year, I went to the regional biology Olympiad, which I won; after that, there was the All-Russian One, where I took 4th place. During trips to these events, I got acquainted with the university's collection of insects, and realized that plywood panels are garbage . I met G. A. Anufriev, who showed a lot of what he could do himself. And of course, Yu. B. Kosarev and his amazing, extraordinary, exceptional collection of butterflies, put in amazing boxes. That's when I really caught fire with butterflies.

And in 1990, I graduated from high school and entered the university. Here my entomological studies took on an orderly character. All special courses were replaced with entomological ones - in fact, we (Volodya Zryanin and I) were engaged in the program of the Department of Entomology of Moscow State University. I literally lived in the library - since then I still keep piles of notebooks with extracts - articles by Nekrutenko, Shvanvich, Korshunov... We had a surprisingly rich university library - Soviet literature on butterflies was almost all there. My research interests also took shape : the origin and evolution of mountain faunas in the Palearctic.

In 1993 (3rd year) I made my first independent trip to Central Asia - to the Kirghiz Mountain Range. I spent a month in the Chon-Kuurchak gorge, exploring it closely. In 1994, based on the results of the expedition, he published an article in the Zoological Journal. And off we went... In Central Asia, counting the last expedition of this year, I have already visited 17 times, in total I spent about 2 years in the field only in Central Asia (when I calculated it, I was blown away myself), I collected quite good material, according to which I am preparing for publication a book about day butterflies of the Northern Tien Shan (the book was ready 5 years ago, review, received good reviews, but I slowed down its publication - I decided to go again to check something; I checked it out - it turned out that it was too early to publish, I still need to research :D).

Vivat entomology! Vivat entomologists!!!

The message was edited rhopalocera.com - 24.06.2011 09: 09

Oh, what a topic...

The first conscious memory is 4 years old, Sochi, a flower bed, an incredible podalirium - that is, I later found out that he was a podalirium, and then I just went to the flower bed - to catch, catch, catch this miracle
Essno, I didn't catch it.
Yessno, the flowerbed turned out to be adjacent to some Soviet-party institution (yes, there were such-in the last century, in another country...) - and the policeman, who was blown away by the heat and my impudence, caught me and scolded me. I wasn't ashamed at all, but I really wanted to continue the process...

Then it was worse - like trying to keep ground beetles, bumblebees and caterpillars at home, a live hornet's nest smuggled home in a shirt, an anthill in an aquarium... At the same time-collecting everything that can be pinned on a pin (first - sewing, then in the pet store found _real_ entomological)... One of the most well-read, watched, and patched books was Stanek's Encyclopedia of Insects , which was followed by Marikovsky, Fabre, and Brehm... Photos of ground beetles, staphylins and other beetles in general could be considered as if not for hours

Then - a circle at the MSU Biofactory Faculty, which was led by the unforgettable Belov - and collecting became more or less meaningful. This period lasted somewhere from the 4th to the 8th inclusive classes, then somehow I gradually cooled down to dry creatures - I moved on to live ones - it is more interesting...

In general , I did not become an entomologist, I did not go into science, but the subject is very interesting to this day...

In such an accept

As long as I can remember so much and I love these six-legged animals,
before for some reason I took them apart,
and the last 2 years I specifically started to collect my collection,
it's a pity that in my childhood I didn't have such people who would prompt, help, then I would have achieved much more now....

At the age of six, while swimming in the Mari El river, I saw strange birds that flew around and didn't go anywhere. I caught one of them and it turned out to be a butterfly. At first, I thought to throw the grass and feed the pikes, but in the end I let go. In one of the books about insects, I saw images of that butterfly-it turned out to be podalirium. Since then, I've grown to like insects. He walked through the streets and gathered ground beetles under the stones (he kept a grainy ground beetle in a matchbox and slipped it bread), caught ants on a birch tree and ate, considering their acid delicious, and threw flies into a spider's web to feed the spiders... Oh, there were a lot of things, you can't remember everything)