Forty-two years of scientific research on eight legs-celebrating the 60 th birthday of Dr Yuri M. Marusik.

The biography of Dr Yuri Mikhailovich Marusik is presented, and his scientific life illuminated on the occasion of his 60 th birthday. Yuri is a renowned specialist of spiders. He has described 718 new species, 57 new genera, and two new subfamilies of order Araneae. Twenty-five species and one genus have been dedicated to him. Facts and impressions are given as well as a bibliography of his 545 publications.