Norman I. Platnick

Norman Ira Platnick (December 30, 1951 – April 8, 2020) was an American biological systematist and arachnologist. He was born in Bluefield, West Virginia. 
He was a Professor Emeritus of the Richard Gilder Graduate School and Peter J. Solomon Family Curator Emeritus of the invertebrate zoology department of the American Museum of Natural History. Platnick described over 1,800 species of spiders from around the world. 
Until 2014 he was also the maintainer of the World Spider Catalog, a website which tracks the arachnology literature.
Platnick died on April 8, 2020 at a hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania of problems caused from a fall, aged 68.