Petar Beron, Professor Emeritus of the National Museum of Natural History at Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, was awarded the Sign of Distinction of the President of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences during an official ceremony held on the 9th of October 2020. The prestigious award, was handed by the Academician Yulian Revalski, for his significant contributions to acarology and zoogeography and on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Members of the governing bodies of the Academy and the National Museum of Natural History were present at the ceremony.
In 2020 Prof. Petar Beron turned 80. He has dedicated nearly 57 years of his life to scientific research and to development of the National Museum of Natural history and its collections. A doyen of Bulgarian acarologists, his interests spread beyond the investigation of the mites and extend to scientific disciplines such as chiropterology, biospeleology, high-mountain fauna, herpetology, entomology, etc. Prof. Beron’s contribution to the enrichment of the museum collections with specimens from nearly every continent is exceptional. The publication series Historia naturalis bulgarica, Tranteeva, Bureschiana and Biodiversity of Bulgaria were published under his scientific editorship. As a sign of respect for his outstanding scientific research, today more than 70 animal species from around the world bear his name.