Zoological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences is located in Saint Petersburg, Russia, with near 200 years history and great influence on the world. It houses the biggest Zoological Museum in Russia, which is also one of the ten largest nature history museums in the world. The institute mainly works on the study in the fields of zoology, zoological ecology, biodiversity, morphology, zoogeography, and paleontology. Especially on the zoological taxonomy, it is with a high international influence.
Dr. Boris Ivanovich Sirenko, is the chief worker of the Laboratory of Marine Research at the Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences. He is studying on the taxonomy, phylogeny, zoogeography, paleontology and ecology of chitons and gastropods. Dr. Sirenko began to study chitons from the 1970's. Now he is one of the world famous expert in this field. In 2006, he proposed a new systematics on the Class Polyplacophora, comprehensively revised the taxonomy of chiton both fossil and Recent species. This systematics has been widely accepted by international peers.
Because of inadequacy investigation and shortage of systematic study, species composition was not fully discovered in China. And our taxonomy on chitons is far away lag behind the international research. It is in urgent need to carry out international cooperation. During this visit, Dr. Junlong ZHANG visited the Zoological Institute and Zoological Museum, went to the Laboratory of Marine Research to study observation method on aesthetes, radula, egg hull projections, spermatozoids, articulamentum and tegmentum of chitons. He examined their specimens collected from China, Vietnam, Sea of Japan and Russian Far Eastern Seas.