Leo Sheljuzhko

Leo Sheljuzhko
Лев Шелюжко

Born (1890-09-26)26 September 1890
Kyiv, Russian Empire
Died 22 September 1969(1969-09-22) (aged 78)
Munich, Germany
Residence USSR, Germany
Citizenship
Fields Entomology
Institutions
Alma mater
Notable students
  • Yurii Nekrutenko

Leo Andreyevich Sheljuzhko (Ukrainian: Лев Андрійович Шелюжко, German: Leo Andrejewitsch Sheljuzhko; 14 September 1890, Kiev – 22 August 1969, Munich) was a Ukrainian-German entomologist who specialized in Lepidoptera, Rhopalocera. He wrote numerous scientific papers and books on the butterflies and moths of Central Asia, Ukraine, Far East, Caucasus in Russian, Ukrainian, German, and English, and described many new taxa.

Life

He was born in 1890, the son of Andrei Ivanovich Shelyuzhko, a wealthy Ukrainian landowner. He studied at Kyiv University, and after completing his studies in 1912, he opened a business where he sold exotic plants and animals, the largest in the Russian Empire. He invested the profits in buying specimens of Lepidoptera from collectors and organizing expeditions, mostly to Central Asia and Caucasus. From 1918, he worked as a curator at the Shcherbak Zoology Museum of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. In 1933-1941, he was a curator at Zoology Museum in Kiev University where he was installing his own Rhopalocera collection.

When the city was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941 Shelyuzhko remained under the German occupation, as his collection was left in Kyiv by University authorities as not valuable. As the Red Army approached Kiev in 1943, he was forced to flee to Germany with his butterfly specimens. Rail cars with the collection were lost in Eastern Prussia, while Shelyuzhko got to Munich where he remained for the rest of his life, eventually taking West German citizenship. From 1945 to his death in 1969, he was a researcher at the Bavarian State Zoological Collections in Munich.

Science

Leo Shelyuzhko was among the first aquarium amateurs and tropical fish breeder in Russian Empire. He was first to bring and breed piranha and Callichthys callichthys in Russia.[1]

While working in University Museum Shelyuzhko organized several entomological expeditions to mountainous regions of USSR to collect and describe Lepidoptera species (Pamir Mountains, Armenia, Dagestan). He issued many works of new species and systematics of Rhopalocera. His collection had worldwide specimens of geni Parnassius and Colias.

His collection remains in the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. During World War II, it was lost by Germans and found by Soviet military and taken to Moscow. In 1946 it returned to Kiev. It consists of more than 300.000 specimens of Lepidoptera.

Works

Partial list (examples)

References

Literature

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