China Vitae

Biography

Zhao Ermi, male, Han nationality, is a native of Chengdu, Sichuan Province. He graduated from Huaxi University in 1951.

Zhao Ermi has described and named 38 new series (or sub-series) of amphibians and reptiles and two new genera of amphibians. "China Amphibious Reptile Zoology," written with American scholar Kraig Adler, was the first monograph to comprehensively describe 661 series of amphibians and reptiles in China.

Zhao was one of the first amphibian and reptile scholars to enter Tibet for investigation purposes. He added 8 new series for Tibet and 10 newly recorded series in China or Tibet and was the first to report that cobras appeared in Motuoxirang and he moved its distribution scope northwards 4 degrees in latitude. This was considered to be evidence that sub-tropic animals diffused northward along vapor passages of the Brahmaputra Great Valley.

Zhao was also the first to propose adding a new "sub-area of the south slope of the Himalayas" to the southwest area in animal geographic divisions mainly according to the distribution of reptiles. He was the first to introduce his idea concerning the district system formation of amphibians and reptiles on the West Pacific Island chains and distribution pattern of amphibians and reptiles in temperate zones of East Asia.

Zhao was an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.