Leonid Tatarinov

Born Nov. 12, 1926, in Tula. Soviet zoologist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1974). Member of the CPSU since 1964.

Tatarinov graduated from Moscow State University in 1949 and worked at the Institute of Paleontology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR beginning in 1955; he was head of the institute’s laboratory from 1960 to 1972. He began working at the A. N. Severtsov Institute of Evolutionary Animal Morphology and Ecology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1973. Since 1975 he has been director of the Institute of Paleontology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Tatarinov has worked mainly in the field of evolutionary zoology; he has carried out original research on the origin and early evolution of amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. He has also done work in paleontology and in the stratigraphy of continental deposits dating from the Permian and Triassic periods. Tatarinov received the State Prize of the USSR in 1978.