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Biodiversity Explorers >
Balinsky, Boris Ivan (1905 - 1997)
Professor of Zoology at the University of the
Witwatersrand who studied dragonflies.
Dedication in Tarboton and Tarboton (2005):
"Prof Balinsky came to South Africa in 1949 at the
age of 44, a second world war refugee from Russia. He joined the Zoology
Department at the University of the Witwatersrand as a lecturer, becoming a
professor in the department in 1954 and later its head. His interest in
dragonflies was perhaps triggered by the first specimen he collected, a
Goldtail, Allocnemis leucosticta, that he found at Duiwelskloof on 26
April 1950. Over the next 25 years he visited many parts of southern Africa on
dragonfly missions, building up a collection of more than 4000 carefully
prepared and meticulously labelled specimens of 160 species - a high proportion
of the region's fauna. He donated these to the Transvaal Museum in 1984 and they
are the centrepiece of their Odonata collection. His first interesting
discovery, Pinhey's Whisp (collected in 1954 and described in 1963), was found
in the suburb of Johnnesburg, Craighall, where he lived, and over the years he
discovered and named another 10 previously undescribed Odonata in the region,
including the damselflies Drakensberg Malachite, Balinsky's Sprite, Umsingazi
Sprite and Orange Whisp, all species covered in this guide."
References
- Tarboton, W. & Tarboton, M. 2005. A Field Guide to the
Damselflies of South Africa. Privately published by the authors.
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