<strong>Professor Qi-Bin Lin and palaeoentomology of China</strong>

Abstract

Professor Qi-Bin Lin (Figs 1, 2) was born on February 15th, 1935 (same birthday as the first author, Di-Ying Huang) in Putian, Fujian Province, southeastern China. He graduated from the Department of Biology of Nanjing University in 1959 and has been working at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) since then. In his early career, he did research on Permian brachiopods with Prof. Yu Wang. Although there were sporadic studies on insect fossils in China before China’s Liberation, palaeoentomology was still a blank in China at that time and there was a lack of professional researchers. That was the reason why the institute’s leader assigned him to research on insect fossils. Lin went to the Beijing Institute of Entomology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (later merged into the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) in 1961 to study entomology for one year. He studied under the supervision of the famous entomologist, Prof. Juan-Jie Tan, who was not only an excellent coleopterist, but also one of the pioneers in palaeoentomology of China.