Sergei Aleksandrovich Buturlin (Russian:Серге́й Александрович Бутурлин); 22 September 1872 inMontreux – 22 January 1938 inMoscow was a Russianornithologist. He was a pioneer in Russia of the study of the diversity of species and described more than 200 new species of bird.
A scion of one of the oldest families of Russian nobility, Buturlin spent most his life in Russia although he was born in the Swiss town ofMontreux along with a twin brother Alexander who died at the age of seven. His father A.S Buturlin (1845-1916) was physician, writer and Marxist friend ofLeo Tolstoy. He went to a classical gymnasium in Simbirsk (modernUlyanovsk) and studied jurisprudence inSt. Petersburg from 1890 and graduated with a gold medal in 1894-95. He took an interest in hunting at a young age and became a friend ofBoris Mikhailovich Zhitkov at an early age. Buturlin married Vera Vladimirovna Markova, the sister of a law school classmate, in 1898. The couple moved to Wesenberg (Estonia) where he served as a justice of peace until 1918. The marriage however did not last.[1] Although his position paid a salary, his interest in zoology was greater and he spent most of his career collecting specimens across Russia and Siberia and describing the results of his observations. Until 1892 he collected in theVolga region, then in theBaltic region; from 1900 to 1902, along with B.M. Zhitkov, on the islands ofKolguyev andNovaya Zemlya. Between 1904 and 1906 he took part in an expedition to theKolyma River inSiberia,[2] and in 1909 he visited theAltai Mountains, and he made his final expedition in 1925 on theChukchi Peninsula.[3][4] He received a doctorate in 1936 without a dissertation. During World War I, many of Buturlin's collections were stored on the estate of his neighbour, the Krotkovs. These were raided during the 1917 revolution and thought to be lost, however some of the material was rediscovered after Buturlin's death in the Simbirsk Folk Museum. This was also a time when his mother died and a brother was shot. In 1918 he joined the zoological museum of theUniversity of Moscow, and in 1924 he donated his collection of palaearctic birds.[5][1][6]
In 1906 Buturlin became a foreign member of theBritish Ornithologists' Union; in 1907 he became a corresponding member of theAmerican Ornithologists' Union. Buturlin published many important work on the taxonomy and distribution of the palaearctic birds, including:
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