Amphibia-Reptilia 36 (2015): 1-4 Obituary: Valery K. Eremchenko (1949-2014) On April 14th of 2014 a leading herpetologist of of the desert lidless skink (Ablepharus deserti his country, Dr. Valery Konstantinovich Erem- Strauch) in northern Kyrgyzstan; this species re- chenko passed away in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, af- mained a main object of his herpetological stud- ter several years of severe illness. We lost a re- ies. markable expert of the herpetofauna of Middle As the main study field of the Laboratory of Asia, a friend and a collaborator. Vertebrates at the Institute of Biology in Frunze Dr. Eremchenko was born on June 27th in was ornithology, some of the first scientific pa- 1949 in Morozovsk, a small town in Rostov pers by Valery (with his first wife, Valentina Province (now Russian Federation). His Rus- Toropova, an ornithologist) were devoted to lo- sian mother, Elena Ivanovna, was a house- cal birds and their natural history (1975-1980). wife and his Ukrainian father, Konstantin Fe- In 1977, Eremchenko graduated from the uni- dorovich, served in the military and worked for versity with a Diploma in Biology, including the the Soviet railroads in various regions. Valery license to teach biology and chemistry in nor- finished normal school, and during 1968-1969 mal schools. he worked as a gas service metalworker for the Valery continued his studies on skinks of Frunzegaz State Company. In November 1970, Kyrgyzstan, with a focus on their taxonomy he became a technical assistant (laborant)ofthe and geographical distribution. He split the genus Laboratory of Vertebrates at the Institute of Bi- Ablepharus sensu lato by describing the new ology, Academy of Sciences of the Kirghiz Re- genus Asymblepharus with his adviser N.N. public. From this time on, Valery was affiliated Szczerbak. In 1981, Valery became a postgradu- with the institute for several decades of his aca- ate student at the Institute of Zoology, Ukrainian demic life. In 1972, he was appointed as senior Academy of Sciences in Kiev, advised by N.N. laborant of the same lab, and simultaneously Szczerbak. His dissertation work was devoted studied at the leading Kirghiz State University. to taxonomy, variation and distribution of the In 1973, Eremchenko had started to study the genus Ablepharus. Compared with the moun- ecology and morphometric variation in a scin- tain skink genera Scincella and Leiolopisma, cid lizard, Ablepharus deserti Strauch and con- he confirmed the distinctiveness of Asymble- tacted L.J. Borkin, at the time a postgraduate pharus. In 1984 Eremchenko successfully de- student of the Department of Herpetology, Zo- fended his thesis and received the Candidate ological Institute, USSR Academy of Sciences. of Science degree, an equivalent to a Ph.D. In Their first meeting quickly developed in lasting 1985, he became a senior research fellow at friendship. Borkin introduced Eremchenko fur- the Institute of Biology, Academy of Sciences ther to herpetology and supported his scientific of the Kirghiz Republic. In 1986, Valery pub- interest in lizards from then on. lished his dissertation as a monograph with the During the 4th Soviet Herpetological Con- same title (“Ablepharid Lizards of the Fauna ference in Leningrad in 1977 he met Ilya S. of the USSR and Adjacent Countries”) coau- Darevsky and Nikolai N. Szczerbak – two of thored with his adviser N.N. Szczerbak (Frunze, the most influential herpetologists of the So- in Russian). viet Union at this time. Among the confer- Since 1986, intensely cooperating with L. ence abstracts is also his first paper on variation Borkin and researchers of the Institute of Cy- © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2015. DOI:10.1163/15685381-00002977 2 Obituary tology, Academy of Sciences (Leningrad), he fenberger, Gaston Guex), Kazakhstan (T. Duj- added flow cytometry on nuclear DNA to study sebaeva) and Italy (Emilio Balletto, Cristina Gi- the diploid-polyploid complex of Palearctic acoma). In 1996, Eremchenko participated in green toads (Bufo viridis subgroup; also as- a herpetological field trip to Nepal, organized signed to Bufotes). by N. Helfenberger, and in 2000 and 2002, he In 1988 Dr. Eremchenko was appointed as the conducted two expeditions in Kyrgyzstan and Head of the Zoological Museum at the Institute Kazakhstan with R. Sindaco and in 2005 and of Biology in Bishkek (former Frunze). How- 2009, common field work on a hybrid zone of ever, the museum was in very bad condition. green toads in the Tian-Shan of Kyrgyzstan with Valery and his colleagues (Alexander Panfilov M. Stöck (at the time, Berkeley and Lausanne). and Evgenii Tsarinenko) reconstructed the mu- Due to a personal conflict, Dr. Eremchenko seum, partly by their-own hands and success- had to leave the Zoological Museum, and fully transformed the museum into the leading moved in September 2004 to the Kyrgyz-Ru- scientific institution in herpetology of Kirghizia. ssian (Slavic) University, where he became the Geographically, the content of these collections head of the exhibition department. Due to vari- mostly covered Kyrgyzstan and other republics ous turbulences with his affiliation as researcher of the former Soviet Middle Asia, with spe- also at this university, including major health cial attention to gekkonid, lacertid, and scincid and economic problems, in 2005 Valery started lizards. working also for regional offices of a German After the collapse of Soviet Union (Decem- NGO, devoted to nature conservation in Cen- ber 1991), many scientists left the previous So- tral Asia (figs 1, 2). During this period, Valery viet republics due to growing nationalistic pres- struggled for both the continuation of his sci- sure and economic disaster. Valery decided to entific work and surviving with his family in a stay in the now independent Kyrgyzstan. He rapidly changing country. In 2007, Valery con- became the main expert on the herpetofauna tributed to a book, co-edited with Roberto Sin- of Tian-Shan Mountain system and a leading daco, containing an annotated checklist of rep- herpetologist of Middle Asia. In 1992, Erem- tiles of the Western Palearctics. In summer of chenko published an important book on the cy- the same year, he participated as a national her- togenetics and taxonomy of lizards coauthored petology expert in a PATCA (http://patca.org/) by A.M. Panfilov and E.I. Tsarinenko. In July project in the Alai region. In March 2008 Valery 1992, Valery participated in the First Asian Her- retired from his position. petological Meeting, held in Huangshan, China. According to personal files, kept at the Bish- Since 1993, Eremchenko has continued various kek Institute of Biology and Soil, Eremchenko herpetological studies in Kyrgyzstan and neigh- authored more than 90 papers, mostly in Rus- boring parts of Kazakhstan, in cooperation with sian; five of them were devoted to birds of Leo Borkin, supported by the Russian Foun- Kirghizia (migrations, new records, feeding). dation of Basic Research and Earthwatch In- His herpetological publications spanned the pe- stitution (USA). Joint field trips revealed the riod 1977-2010 and primarily covered system- occurrence of diploid and triploid hybrids and atics, distribution, and faunistics of amphib- a contact zone of diploid and tetraploid green ians and reptiles of Kyrgyzstan and other re- toads, both in mountains near Bishkek and in publics of the former Soviet Middle Asia. Some arid plains in southern Kazakhstan. In 1994 and papers were devoted to the taxonomy of lac- 1995 he continued herpetological research in ertid (Eremias) lizards of neighboring China Kyrgyzstan and southeastern Kazakhstan, tak- and scincid lizards of Nepal, western India ing part in few field trips with colleagues from and Vietnam. Valery described 16 new taxa Russia (L.J. Borkin), Switzerland (Notker Hel- of reptiles; among them 3 genera, 2 subgen-.