Yuri Apollonovich Ptashkovsky (1948—2015)

Abstract

Yuri Apollonovich Ptashkovsky (Юрий Аполлонович Пташковский, in Russian) was born on April 4, 1948, in Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, and spent most of his life there. He studied at the Khmelnytskyi Electromechanical College, specializing as an electrical technician. He later worked as head of the cinema-photo laboratory of the Khmelnytskyi Municipal Palace of Culture and also led the Children’s Photography Club.
Despite his technical education, Yuri’s devotion to nature and studies of nature were evident from his early years. From young age, he passionately observed and investigated insects, especially beetles. Yuri started his own private beetle collection at the age of fourteen. He carefully mounted the specimens for his collection and identified them using available entomological literature. By 1978, his collection amounted to about 1,500 species of beetles. ...
Yuri came to Israel on October 28, 1998, joining his eldest son, who was already living in Kibbutz Malkiyya. Yuri settled in Qiryat Hayyim, one of the northern suburbs of Haifa, where he remained for the rest of his life. He worked as a geodesist for the Jewish National Fund (KKL) until his retirement in 2013. From his very first steps in the country, Yuri became fascinated by the incredible diversity of the local beetle fauna, and immediately began collecting insects. Many of his field trips were in and around Qiryat Hayyim, in surrounding fields, and in marine dunes, although he also collected in other parts of the country, particularly in the Upper Galilee, Golan Heights, and on Mount Hermon. Working as a geodesist for KKL, he traveled regularly across northern Israel and was able to assemble a valuable collection of beetles and to photograph them in their natural environment. When the number of his photographed species exceeded 1,000, Yuri came up with the idea of making an illustrated atlas of Israeli Coleoptera.
In 2009, after eight years of intensive work the atlas—the first of its kind—was published. The first edition was in Russian and Hebrew, with only a few printed copies. The second edition of 50 copies was published in 2013 in English, with Russian and Hebrew names of some beetle taxa. The atlas is illustrated with 1,800 color images of 1,655 beetle species, some of them taken by the author and some borrowed from various sources. Some of the taxa are briefly described, others are only mentioned by name and by distribution; identification guidelines and sketches are provided for some species and genera. The books were published at Yuri’s own expense. Over the last few years, Yuri began to work on a third edition of his atlas, but his untimely death has interrupted this admirable endeavor.
Yuri passed away unexpectedly, from a stroke, on February 9, 2015. He is survived by his wife Galina, two sons and a daughter.

Cite as: Friedman, A.-L.-L. & Novikova, A.V. 2016. Yuri Apollonovich Ptashkovsky (1948—2015). Israel Journal of Entomology 46: 137–140.

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.221107