Boris Sket (born 30 July 1936 in

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the ar ...

) is a Slovenian

zoologist Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

and speleobiologist. Sket obtained his doctorate at the

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana ( sl, Univerza v Ljubljani, , la, Universitas Labacensis), often referred to as UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 39,000 enrolled students. History Beginnings Although certain ...

in 1961 and became a research assistant at the former Natural sciences faculty. In 1965, he became an

invertebrate zoology Invertebrate zoology is the subdiscipline of zoology that consists of the study of invertebrates, animals without a backbone (a structure which is found only in fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals). Invertebrates are a vast and very di ...

professor at the Biotechnical faculty in Ljubljana and remained at this position until 2006. Between 1983 and 1985, Sket served as a dean of the Biotechnical faculty, and later, between 1989 and 1991, as the 37th

rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

of the University of Ljubljana. He was retired as a scientific councillor and still lecturing speleobiology to graduate and post-graduate students. His research focuses on the faunistics of troglobionts and biospeleology in general. He described over a hundred new

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

, some

genera Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...

and a family of invertebrates, mostly

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

s and

leech Leeches are segmented parasitic or predatory worms that comprise the subclass Hirudinea within the phylum Annelida. They are closely related to the oligochaetes, which include the earthworm, and like them have soft, muscular segmented bodie ...

es. A new biogeographic classification of Dinaric cave fauna. First ecological investigations of anchihaline fauna. Sket joined the ranks of Ljubljana Cave Exploration Society (DZRJL) in 1950 and in 1964 he discovered Borisov rov oris Tunnel an important part of Najdena jama cave. While the focus of his research was the cave fauna of the Dinaric karst, he also took part in cave explorations in other areas such as Ecuador, Galapagos islands, Colombia, Crete island, The Philippines, Florida, Bermudas, Kenya and China. Sket was the president of the Caving Association of Slovenia, the president of the International Society of Subterranean Biology. He also serves in editorial boards of several scholarly journals and is a subject field editor of the 'megajournal' ''Zootaxa''. In 2011, Sket became a member of the

Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( sl, Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti (SAZU)) is the national academy of Slovenia, which encompasses science and the arts and brings together the top Slovene researchers and artists as members o ...

. Additionally, he is a foreign member of the

Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina An academy ( Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosop ...

. Holder of some national awards and medals. Approximately 35 animal species named ''sketi'', three genera likewise.

References

Glej tudi

List of Slovenian biologists List of notable biologists from Slovenia {{compact ToC, side=yes, top=yes, num=yes D * Dragotin Dežman (1821 - 1889) G * Matija Gogala (b. 1937) * Pavel Grošelj H * Franc de Paula Hladnik (1773 - 1844) K * Jožef Kalasanc Erberg (17 ...

External links

Official page
1936 births Living people Slovenian zoologists University of Ljubljana alumni Academic staff of the University of Ljubljana Members of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts Scientists from Ljubljana Members of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina {{zoologist-stub