Olga Mikhailovna Martynova (19 July 1900 â 18 February 1997) was a Russian palaeoentomologist.
Martynova was born Olga Mikhailovna Aleksandrova in Saint Petersburg on 19 July 1900. At university she became interested in freshwater insects, taking part in a scientific expedition to Karelia where she met her future husband and scientific partner, Professor Andrey Vasilyevich Martynov (1879-1938). Martynova later supplied a personal account of her marriage to Prof Martynov, for Vladimir Ivanov's biography of her husband, recalling that when they first met, Prof Martynov had considered her presence in his laboratory unwelcome, but that he had eventually found her assistance in his work to be indispensable. The couple had one daughter who died in infancy, and a son named Nikolai who became an engineer.
During World War II, Martynova was part of the team responsible for moving the Soviet National Academy of Sciences' insect collection to the copper mines at Kargala for protection, and she helped monitor and protect the collection remaining in the Academy building in Moscow from incendiary bombs during air raids.
After the war, Martynova continued in her studies and was particularly known for work on fossil insects and for curating the Russian State palaeoentomology collections. Martynova had dispensation to travel overseas for work and she attended the International Congress of Entomology at Vienna in 1960, presenting her paper on the camel-necked flies (Raphidioptera) of the Permian and Carboniferous periods.
Martynova died on 18 February 1997.
Taxonomic genera for fossil insects described by Martynova during her career include:
[note: a detailed list of Martynova's most important works features in Sukatsheva and Ivanov, 2002]