Page 39 - Proceedings of the State Natural History Museum. Issue 37 (Lviv, 2021)

38 Загороднюк І.В.

36. Scharlemann, E. 1953. Materialien zur Kenntnis und zur Erhaltung des ukrainischen Bibers.
Zeitschrift für Säugetierkunde, 18 (1950): 146-162.

Національний науково-природничий музей НАН України, м. Київ
e-mail: zoozag@ukr.net

Zagorodniuk I.
Ground squirrels of the war: a history of zoological research and Spermophilus
collections in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine
The history of research on ground squirrels as pests is described in detail in the light of
reconstruction of the history and specifics of zoological institutions of Kyiv in 1941-1944,
including the Institute of Plant Protection and its Zoological Museum. Data from five
different groups of sources were analyzed such as publications, collections, personal files
(including KGB) and interviews of participants in those events. It is shown that ground
squirrels were one of the main research objects at the Institute of Plant Protection, which
was established by the occupation regime in 1942-1943 on the basis of the Institute of
Zoology and the Zoological Museum of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR. Based
on studies of the distribution and variability of ground squirrels of the group Spermophilus
"suslicus", two articles were published after the war describing new forms, including the
Volyn subspecies, published by E. Reshetnyk in the USSR (1946) and by E. Scharlemann in
Germany (1952). The history of (probable) transfers of the ground squirrel collection is
analyzed and the measures that had been taken to prevent their export to Poznan and further
to Germany in the autumn of 1943 are clarified. It is shown that part of the ground squirrel
type series described in various publications is identical, but it was most likely either not
exported or returned quickly. Various facts about the movements of collections based on
memories of the participants of those events are analyzed.
Key words: Ground squirrels, museum collections, history of research, Ukraine.