Kir Nesis

Kir Nazimovich Nesis (9 January 1934 – 8 January 2003) was a Russian marine biologist and malacologist, specialising in cephalopods.

Early life and education Nesis was born in Moscow on 9 January 1934 to an intellectual family, his father was an architect and his mother was an economic geographer. His father was arrested by the Soviet state in 1938 and executed. This would cause some difficulty for Nesis as he was the son of a person who had been executed as an enemy of the state. He initially wanted to study astronomy and he won an All-Union Competition in astronomy for schoolchildren but this career was not open to the son of an "enemy of the nation". He decided instead to become a marine biologist and in 1951 he enrolled in a course at the Moscow Technical Institute for Fisheries and Fishery Management in the Department of Hydrobiology, as this was not among the top ranked Soviet institutions his father's status did not bar him from entry.

Career After graduation Nesis was secured an appointment as a junior researcher at the Laboratory of Marine Biology in the Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography in Murmansk. His first spell at the laboratory lasted from 1956 to 1960 and he returned from 1963-1966. He eventually became the chief of the laboratory and carried out research on the benthic fauna of the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans, especially the taxonomy and ecology of various groups of these animals. Between these two periods in Murmansk Nesis enrolled at the Zoological Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Leningrad. Here he completed his Ph.D. and his thesis was called The Bottom Fauna of Commercial Fishery Areas of the North Atlantic and the Atlantic sector of the Arctic as an Indicator of Productivity and Water Regime.

Amigdoscalpellum nesisi (Zevina, 1972) Asperoteuthis nesisi Arkhipkin & Laptikhovsky, 2008 Cholidyella nesisi Avdeev, 1986 Heterocarpus nesisi Burukovsky, 1986 Kirnasia nesisi Burukovsky, 1988 Scaeurgus nesisi Norman, Hochberg & Boucher-Rodoni, 2005

Species named by Kir Nesis Nesis described some 29 cephalopod species including the following.

Gonatopsis okutanii Nesis, 1972 Neorossia caroli jeannae Nesis et al., 2001 Nototeuthis dimegacotyle Nesis & Nikitina, 1986 Walvisteuthis virilis Nesis & Nikitina, 1986