Expeditions of N. A. Zarudny in Iran (Persia)

Many travelers collected bird specimens from Iran (Persia), either to support their 
identifications or in order to unravel subspecies taxonomy of the birds of Iran. This article is trying to 
note expeditions by the world-famous ornithologist Nikolai Alekseevich Zarudny during his travels 
in Iran which have alreadypublished in different books or reported papers. Zarudny conducted four 
prominent expeditions during 1896 until 1904 to Eastern, Central, and Western parts of Iran. These 
expeditions supported by the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Russian Geographic Society, and 
the St. Petersburg Zoological Museum. He collected, identified, and published rich materials on the 
fauna of this region, especially on the birds. Zarudny deposited lots of skin materials of bird fauna 
of Iran that constitute about 11% of ornithological collection in National University of Uzbekistan. 
Herewith, his expedition routes and main finding has been explained in details in the text and on the 
maps. Each expedition is supplied with annotations, giving the localities and time of year where the 
bird observations had been made. These data are also superimposed on a separate maps supplied 
with coordinates. This information potentially could be used to prepare a historical atlas of observed 
distribution birds in Iran.