Education
Boris Schwanwitz graduated from the Saint St. Petersburg University (1908–1913).
Boris Schwanwitz graduated from the Saint St. Petersburg University (1908–1913).
He is best known for his studies of the colour pattern of the wings. After graduation he changed a number of academic positions: assistant lecturer in Entomology at the Stebut Agricultural School (1915), assistant lecturer (1919) and private-docent (1926) at Petrograd (Leningrad) University, professor at the Permanent University (1928–1930). In 1930, he returned to Leningrad (Street St. Petersburg) to take the position of the head of Entomology department of the Leningrad University (1930–1931 and 1944–1955, 1930 to 1944 the department for Entomology was part of the Invertebrate Zoology department) Vice-president of the Entomological Society of Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics (1954–1957) and the chair of the Zoology section of the Leningrad Naturalists Society.
In a series of papers he reconstructed the groundplan of the colour-pattern of the wings, first for the Rhopalocera, then for Heteroceran families.
He formulated the stereomorphism principle, according to which the cryptic effect of the colour pattern is a result of its "flattening" (the three-dimensional objects look flat) or "disjunctive" effect (the two-dimensional objects look like a complex three-dimensional relief). To prove his point he built the plaster three-dimensional models of the lepidopteran wings, the photographs of which looked like an actual colour pattern of stripes and shades (photos were published in a series of papers and in his textbook in entomology).
Among his other important contributions are a textbook in entomology with a large morphology section heavily based on Snodgrass and Weber (1949, still in use in Russian Universities), and a book on practical apiculture (1945). His gravestone is ornamented with a reproduction of the groundplan of the colour-pattern of lepidopteran wings from his textbook.