Kirill Eskov

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Kirill Yuryevich Eskov (Russian: Кирилл Юрьевич Еськов) (b. September 16, 1956 in Moscow) is a Russian writer, biologist and paleontologist.

Eskov graduated from Faculty of Entomology of the Moscow State University in 1979. In 1986 he defended a dissertation for the Candidate of Biological Sciences at the A.N.Severtsov Institute of Animal Evolutionary Morphology and Ecology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the theme being "Spiders of Northern Siberia (horology analysis)".^[1] His main scientific interests as a biologist are spiders of Siberia and Russian Far East and as a paleontoligist - Paleozoic and Cenozoic eras. As of 2008 he is the Senior Researcher at the Laboratory of Arthropods of the Paleontological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences and vice-president of Eurasian Arachnological Society. He works at the institute since 1988. As of 2002 he had 86 scientific publications.

Eskov discovered several new genera of spiders. Among seven ones discovered by him in 1988 is Kikimora palustris Eskov, 1988^[2] It belongs to Linyphiidae family, is found in Russia and Finland, and the name translates from Latin as "marsh Kikimora". Kikimora is a female spirit in Slavic mythology and Russian equivalent of the phrase, "кикимора болотная", is well-known in the Russian common language.

As a writer he published several books, one of the most famous being The Last Ringbearer (Russian: Последний кольценосец, Polish: Ostatni Władca Pierścienia), an alternative retelling of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, based on the proverb: 'History is told by the victors' (thus showing Mordor as the 'good guys'). Among his other books is the The Gospel of Aphranius (Russian: Евангелие от Афрания, Polish: Ewangelia według Afraniusza), a dramatic portrayal of Jesus.

[edit] Selected scientific publications

• Eskov, K.Y. (1988). "Seven new monotypic genera of spiders of the family Linyphiidae (Aranei) from Siberia". Zool. Zh. 67 (5): 678–690. 
• Eskov, K.Y. (1993). "Several new linyphiid spider genera (Araneida, Linyphiidae) from the Russian Far East". Arthropoda Selecta 2 (3): 43–60. 

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] External links

• (Russian) Short biography at the Paleontological Institute (scroll the page)
• (Russian) List of publications on his personal page at the Laboratory
• (Russian) Critique