Alexey Diakonoff, Date of Birth, Date of Death

Alexey Diakonoff

Russian-Dutch entomologist (1907–1989)

Date of Birth: 01-Mar-1907

Date of Death: 20-Sep-1989

Profession: lepidopterist

Nationality: Kingdom of the Netherlands

Zodiac Sign: Pisces

Alexey Diakonoff (1907, in Saint Petersburg – 1989) full name Alexey Nikolaievich Diakonoff was a Russian entomologist who specialised in Microlepidoptera. His parents emigrated to the Netherlands East Indies where, from 1923, he had his elementary education.
Diakonoff then studied biology at the University of Amsterdam.
A thesis on Indo-Malayan Tortricidae completed, he returned to Java in 1939 to take up a post as an entomologist at a sugar plantations and industries research station.in 1941 he was offered a position in the Zoological Museum at Bogor (Museum Zoologicum Bogoriensis [1]) at Bogor Botanical Gardens but the Japanese invasion intervened.
In 1945 he returned to the Netherlands and studied in Leiden Museum working in the Lepidoptera collection.
He returned to Bogor as the Dutch tried to regain Java.
This failed and in 1951 Diakonoff left Java for the last time.
He became Curator of Lepidoptera at the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie in Leiden.
His scientific work in the Leiden museum continued until his death and his collection is conserved in Naturalis.