Biographical material about S. S. Liberman and N. V. Pokrovskaya – the authors of the article on thermal biology of the sand lizard, 1943, and about the people involved in that work

The article gives some biographical data about the authors of wonderful, landmark article on the thermal biology of the sand lizard. It was published in 1943, and in our opinion it was the first serious article on thermal biology of reptiles, which should consider the beginning of the researches in this scientific field. In 1940-s Serafima S.Lieberman and Nina V.Pokrovskaya were the students of the biological faculty of Moscow state University and worked in the Department of vertebrate zoology. Together with the whole country, they bravely endured the difficulties of the great Patriotic war and, as best they could, contributed to the victory. Their scientific supervisors were the remarkable biologists who worked at the same Department: A. M. Sergeev, Prof. A. N. Formozov and Prof. B. S. Matveev, and that perhaps helped their work to become so important. Later, however, they did not link their activities with Herpetology and worked in other fields of biology. Sima Lieberman and Nina Pokrovskaya were warm friends all their lives. Their children and grandchildren maintain good relations up today.