Acclaimed biologist Arnold Gegechkori dies of Covid at 81

Georgia's acclaimed biologist, ecology teacher and TV presenter Arnold Gegechkori died last weekend at age 81 of Covid-19, with his long-standing colleagues, students and the wider public attending his funeral on Tuesday.

Tributes flowed this week to mark the legacy of the scientist who published hundreds of scientific works, articles and books, led lectures at Georgian and foreign universities, worked at the zoology department of the Georgian National Museum, and presented the popular Georgian Public Broadcaster programme The Gates of Nature that introduced the natural world to a wide range of viewers.

The Georgian National Museum network paid its own homage to Gegechkori with an obituary on social media that praised his work on studying biodiversity of the Caucasus region - including all of its protected areas - as well as his expeditions to most of the 36 "hotspots" of biodiversity across the world.

Arnold Gegechkori was the first Georgian naturalist to carry out scientific missions in field conditions and study all natural zones of the five continents of the globe

- Georgian National Museum

The GNM obituary noted the biologist's leadership of the museum network's expeditions of the Caucasus fauna that resulted in diversified collections of zoology, including exhibits subject of international conventions of environmental protection and the Georgian Red List of endangered species. The late scientist's authorship of around 600 scientific articles and books also received a mention in the tribute. These works included Biomes of the Caucasus: A Comprehensive Review, the first scientific work in English on the subject.

Gegechkori also spent 16 years teaching students of natural sciences as full professor at the Tbilisi State University Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, where he led the biodiversity direction and the bachelor's programme of Ecology. His educational work also included lectures presented at the Atlanta University in the United States, Sidney-New Wales University in Melbourne, Australia, University of Auckland in New Zealand, Kenya-Nairobi University, Mexico City University of Agriculture in Mexico, and Quito University in Ecuador.

The acclaimed naturalist also worked to popularise natural sciences through his presenting of the Georgian Public Broadcaster programme The Gates of Nature, which brought sights and stories of the natural world to homes across Georgia for over three decades.

Gegechkori was a member of numerous local and international communities and unions of naturalists, geographers, ecologists and more, and awarded prizes including the Order of Honour of Georgia in 2013, the Ivane Javakhishvili Medal of the Tbilisi State University in 2000, the International Man of the Year title from the International Biographical Centre in the United Kingdom in 2000, and the 'Guard of the Nature' Medal of the Ministry of Nature Protection of Georgia in 1994.