Boris Schwanwitsch

Who was Boris Schwanwitsch?

Boris Nikolayevich Schwanwitsch, Russian: Борис Николаевич Шванвич, was a Russian entomologist who specialised in Lepidoptera. He is best known for his studies of the colour pattern of the wings.

Boris Schwanwitz graduated from the St. Petersburg University. After graduation he changed a number of academic positions: assistant lecturer in Entomology at the Stebut Agricultural School, assistant lecturer and private-docent at Petrograd University, professor at the Perm University. In 1930, he returned to Leningrad to take the position of the head of Entomology department of the Leningrad University Vice-president of the Entomological Society of USSR and the chair of the Zoology section of the Leningrad Naturalists Society.

In a series of papers he reconstructed the groundplan of the colour-pattern of the wings, first for the Rhopalocera, then for Heteroceran families. He formulated the stereomorphism principle, according to which the cryptic effect of the colour pattern is a result of its 'flattening' or 'disjunctive' effect. To prove his point he built the plaster three-dimensional models of the lepidopteran wings, the photographs of which looked like an actual colour pattern of stripes and shades. Among his other important contributions are a textbook in entomology with a large morphology section heavily based on Snodgrass and Weber, and a book on practical apiculture.