Alexandr Pavlovich Rasnitsyn, (palaeo)entomologist extraordinaire – a personal appreciation

This note is not meant to be an exhaustive account of the many achievements of Alex Rasnitsyn over the 75 years of his life thus far. Apart from anything else, I have little knowledge of his activities outside of my professional interactions with him. Also, there will undoubtedly be several other biographical essays this year to celebrate his accomplishments in many fields. So, my intention, after providing the essential details to place him in context, mainly derived from his personal page on the Paleontological Institute’s website (Rasnitsyn 2011) and a note in the Paleontological Journal (Laboratory of Arthropods, in press), is to give my personal impressions of our interactions, his influence on my own life and work, and on hymenopterology in general