Nikolai Jossifowitsch Burchak-Abramowitsch

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Nikolai Jossifowitsch Burtschak-Abramovich ( Russian : Николай Йосифович Бурчак-Абрамович, English transcription Nikolay Yosifovich Burchak-Abramovich * 26. September 1900 in Martyniwka (Pulyny) , Poland ; † 15. October 1997 in Tbilisi , Georgia ) was a Soviet paleontologist . His main research interests were palaeornithology , paleomammalogy, the Quaternary palaeozoology of the Caucasus and archeology , especially the domestication of poultry and mammals .

Life

Burchak-Abramowitsch was born into a priestly family in the village of Martyniwka (Pulyny) near Zhytomyr (then Poland, now Oblast Zhytomyr in the Ukraine ). After graduating from high school in Zhytomyr, he went to the Institute "Oswiaty Narodowej" and worked as an assistant in the Natural History Museum of Novohrad-Wolynskyj . After three years he became a research assistant at the Geological Institute of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in Kiev . At the age of 26 he published his first scientific publication. In 1941 he took part in a scientific expedition to the Kazakh Socialist Soviet Republic , where he collected paleontological samples. During the war years he studied the caves and deposits in the South Caucasus . This research culminated in his dissertation on the fossil horn-bearers of the ancient world at the Institute of Paleobiology of the Georgian Academy of Sciences in Tbilisi, where he received his doctorate in 1951 as a doctor of science (Doktor nauk) . In 1957 the work was published as a monograph. From 1947 to 1949 and from 1951 to 1954 he carried out excavations in the Binəqədi fossil site on behalf of the Hasanbey Zardabi Museum of Natural History in Baku , Azerbaijan . The collection he has brought together includes 20,271 fossil bones and bone fragments from at least 1983 individuals. In addition to paleontological and archaeological finds from the former USSR countries, Burchak-Abramowitsch examined collections from Bulgaria , Georgia , Mongolia , China and other countries. Given the vital importance of collections, he created his own osteological collection, which includes over 1000 skeletons of over 500 species of birds from the Palearctic .

In collaboration with the Bulgarian paleontologist Ivan Nikolov (1927–1981) from the National Museum of Natural History of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia , he described the fossil cormorant species Phalacrocorax serdicensis and the fossil geese species Anser thraceiensis in 1984 .

Burtschak-Abramowitsch first described four new genera and 15 new species for science, especially birds and hornbills, including Bubo binagadensis (1965), Struthio brachidactylus (1949, now a synonym of Struthio chersonensis Brandt, 1873 ), Pachystruthio transcaucasicus (1971) , Anser binagadensis (1956), Caspiodontornis kobystanicus (1982), Anas kisatibiensis (1995), Anas ganii (1996), Anser udabnensis (1957), Anser eldaricus (1978), Guguschia nailiae (1968) and Rustaviornis georgicus (1972). In 1990 he described the ratite species Struthio dmanisensis (today Pachystruthio dmanisensis ) from the deposits of the Old Pleistocene in Dmanissi , Georgia, which in 2019 was identified as the largest and heaviest known bird species in the northern hemisphere . Furthermore Burtschak-Abramovich described the fossil Bovidae genres Proto Bison (1980), Adjiderebos (1984) and Dmanisibos (1994) and the types Urmiabos azerbaidzanicus (1950), Bos mastanzadei (1952), Proto Bison kuschkunensis (1980), Adjiderebos cantabilis (1984) and Dmanisibos georgicus (1994). The fossil of pig Sus apsheronicus (1948) and the fossil apes genus Udabnopithecus (1945) are among his first descriptions.

literature

  • Zlatozar Boev: Prof. Dr. Nikolay Yosifovich Burchak-Abramovich (September 26, 1900 - October 15, 1997) / Проф. д-р Николай Йосифович Бурчак-Абрамович (September 26, 1900 - October 15 , 1997 ) Historia naturalis bulgarica, 8, 1997, p. 126 (Bulgarian)
  • Yevgeny Nikolajewitsch Kurotschkin : In Memoriam: Nikolai Iosifovitch Burchak-Abramovitch (1900-1997). SAPE Newsletter No. 12, October 1998
  • Zlatozar Boev: Prof. Nikolay Burchak-Abramovich's private collection of Late Pleistocene birds from Binagada (Azerbaijan) - a lost treasure of avian paleontology: general review of the exploration of the site and its scientific value Proceedings of the 5 th International Meeting of European Bird Curators: National History Museum Vienna, January 2010, pp. 169–198

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nikolai Jossifowitsch Burtschak-Abramowitsch, Abesalom Vekua: The fossil ostrich Struthio dmanisensis sp. n. from the Lower Pleistocene of eastern Georgia. Acta Zoologica Cracoviensia 33, 1990, pp. 121-132.
  2. ↑ Nikita V. Zelenkov, Alexander V. Lavrov, Dmitry B. Startsev, Innessa A. Vislobokova, Alexey V. Lopatin: A giant early Pleistocene bird from eastern Europe: unexpected component of terrestrial faunas at the time of early Homo arrival Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology e1605521, 2019. doi : 10.1080 / 02724634.2019.1605521
personal data
SURNAME Burchak-Abramowitsch, Nikolai Jossifowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Бурчак-Абрамович, Николай Йосифович (Russian); Burchak-Abramovich, Nikolay Yosifovich (English transcription)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Soviet paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Martyniwka (Pulyny) , Poland
DATE OF DEATH October 15, 1997
Place of death Tbilisi , Georgia