Romuald Minkiewicz was an outstanding Polish biologist and ethologist, as well as a devoted socialist activist. After biological studies in St. Petersburg (Russia), he acted as assistant at the University of Kazan, where he received (1904) his PhD degree. Initially, he was interested in hydrobiology and biological oceanology, and studied in various marine biological stations. After the WW I, he was active in the fi elds of physiology of perception, memory, acquired and innate behaviour of animals, and worked as professor at the Free Polish University and in the Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology in Warsaw (Head of the Department of General Biology, 1918–1939). In 1926–1931 he was Chairman of that Institute. Minkiewicz was interested in taxes (in that time called “tropisms”), in particular in photic reactions of various animals to colour lights. He was among the fi rst ones to study modifi - cations of body colouring adapting animals to their environment, including the so called “disguising behaviour” of the crab Maia squinado and behavioural patterns employed by animals to fi nd sites matching their own colouration. He also studied ethology of ants and of fl ying aculeate Hymenoptera. He devoted an extensive study to nest architecture and prey of digger wasps (Sphegidae), today still cited in relevant papers. He wrote poems and dramas. He died of injury in 1944 during Warsaw uprising.
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