Dobzhansky was born in the Ukraine (then part of Imperial
Russia) and emigrated to the United States in 1927. He was a
central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work
on the fruit-fly Drosophila. He did research on these flies in
California, mostly on populations of Drosophila pseudoobscura.
Ukraine and Russia [change] At school Dobzhansky collected
butterflies and beetles, and studued biology at Kiev University.
After graduation he moved to St Petersburg (then called
Leningrad), and studied under Yuri Filipchenko, who had a
Drosophila lab. Dobzhansky collected Coccinellidae (ladybird
beetles) in the wild, and explored their genetics. Dobzhansky
emigrated to the United States in 1927. He worked with Thomas
Hunt Morgan at Columbia University, who had pioneered the use of
fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) in genetics experiments.
He followed Morgan to the California Institute of Technology
from 1930 to 1940. Dobzhansky took fruit fly research out of the
laboratory and into the field. He dis