Norman I. Platnick facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Norman Ira Platnick
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Norman Platnick in 2001 at the 15th International Congress of Arachnology, Badplaas, South Africa
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| Born | December 30, 1951 |
| Died | April 8, 2020 (aged 68) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Harvard University (Ph.D) Michigan State University (M.S.) Concord University (B.S.) |
| Known for | Spider taxonomy |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Arachnology |
| Institutions | American Museum of Natural History |
Norman Ira Platnick (born December 30, 1951 – died April 8, 2020) was an American scientist who studied and organized living things. He was especially famous for studying spiders, which makes him an arachnologist.
At the time of his death, he was a special retired professor at the American Museum of Natural History. He also worked as a curator, which means he took care of the museum's collection of animals without backbones, like spiders.
Norman Platnick earned his Ph.D. degree from Harvard University in 1973. He described over 1,800 different kinds of spiders from all over the world. This made him the second most active spider expert in history!
Until 2014, he also managed the World Spider Catalog. This was a website that kept track of all the scientific papers about spiders. It also tried to list every spider species that had been officially described. In 2007, he won the Bonnet award for his amazing work on this catalog.
A Leader in Spider Science
Norman Platnick was known as one of the best spider experts in the world. Dr. Quentin D. Wheeler said that Platnick was the top arachnologist of his time. He wrote more detailed books and papers about naming species than anyone else.
Platnick was also one of the first members of the Willi Hennig Society. This group focuses on how to classify living things based on their shared ancestry. He even served as its president. His ideas about how to group living things, like in his 1981 book Systematics and Biogeography, are still very important.
Studying Goblin Spiders
Later in his career, Platnick worked on a big project about goblin spiders. These spiders belong to a family called Oonopidae. This project was part of a worldwide effort to study biodiversity, which means all the different kinds of life on Earth.
There are about 1,600 known species of goblin spiders, but scientists think there might be as many as 2,500! The project aimed to find and record more of these spiders. They also wanted to understand their "family tree" by studying their DNA.
His Legacy
Norman Platnick passed away on April 8, 2020, after a fall. He is remembered by scientists around the world. In fact, 8 groups of animals (called genera) and over 50 different species of animals without backbones have been named after him.
See also
In Spanish: Norman I. Platnick para niños
