Oshanin, Vasilii Fedorovich

Born Dec. 21, 1844 (Jan. 2, 1845), in the village of Politovka, now the village of Politovo, Dankov Raion, Lipetsk Oblast; died Jan. 25 (Feb. 7), 1917, in Petrograd. Russian entomologist and traveler.

Oshanin graduated from Moscow University in 1865. He worked in Turkestan from 1872 to 1906. His principal works were on the taxonomy and geographic distribution of true bugs (Hemiptera) and Homoptera. He compiled a taxonomic and geographic catalog of Palaearctic true bugs, Cicadidae, and Psylloidea (more than 5,000 species). He described many new species of insects of Middle Asia and the middle region of European Russia. In 1878 he headed an expedition to the Pamirs; the expedition discovered the Peter I range and the Fedchenko Glacier.