Wiki Wednesday #10

6 06 2007

Yes, it’s the return of my most unpopular feature!

1.) Go to Wikipedia.
2.) Click on “Random article.”
3.) Report on the outcome:

Victor Motschulsky

Victor Ivanovitsch Motschulsky (Sometimes Victor von Motschulsky, Russian: Виктор Иванович Мочульский, 11 April 1810 St. Petersburg – 5 June 1871 Simferopol) was a Russian entomologist mainly interested in beetles.

Motschulsky was an Imperial Army colonel who undertook extended trips abroad. He studied and described many new beetles from Siberia, Alaska, the United States of America, Europe, and Asia. Whilst he tended to ignore previous work and his own work on classification was of poor quality, Motschulsky made a massive contribution to entomology, exploring hitherto unworked regions, often in very difficult terrain. He described many new genera and species, a high proportion of which remain valid.

I don’t like bugs, and I have a hard time understanding why anyone would devote his life to studying them. Does that make me a bug-bigot?

Anyway, I do know that there’s enormous variety among the species of beetles, and the obsessive-compulsive organizer in me also understands the impulse to collect, systematize, and, er, conquer all that variety. Personally, I just wouldn’t want to have to think about—or touch—all those bugs to satisfy that impulse. I’ll stick with rocks, or baseball cards, or something, ok?


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