Merkurii Giliarov

Born Feb. 22 (Mar. 6), 1912, in Kiev. Soviet zoologist. Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1966).

Giliarov graduated from Kiev State University in 1933. From 1934 to 1944 he headed the plant protection department of the All-Union Institute of Rubber Plants. From 1944 to 1955 he was a senior research worker and after 1955, head of the soil zoology laboratory at the Institute of Evolutionary Morphology and Ecology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. At the same time (after 1949) he was a professor at the Lenin Pedagogical Institute in Moscow. His major works have been on methods of combating soil pests, the role of animals in soil formation, the evolution of insects and other arthropods, the laws of natural selection, zoological methods of soil diagnosis, and biogeocenology. Giliarov founded a new field of biology—soil zoology. He has been chairman of the National Committee of Soviet Biologists (since 1959), vice-president of the International Academy of Zoology (Agra, India, since 1960), and vice-president of the All-Union Entomological Society (since 1967). He received the State Prize of the USSR in 1951 and 1967 and has been awarded two orders and various medals.