Benedykt Dybowski was born in
Adamaryni, within the
Minsk Governorate of the
Russian Empire to Polish nobility. He was the brother of naturalist
Władysław Dybowski and the cousin of the French explorer
Jean Dybowski. He studied at Minsk High School, and later medicine at
Tartu (earlier Dorpat) University in present-day
Estonia. He later studied at
Wroclaw University and went on expeditions to seek and study
oceanic fishes and
crustaceans. He became a professor of zoology at the
Warsaw Main School. In 1864 he was arrested and condemned to death for taking part in the Polish
January Uprising. His sentence was later reduced to 12 years in
Siberia. He started studying the natural history of Siberia and in 1866 a governor Muraviov dismissed Dybowski from hard labour (
katorga), renewed his civil rights and proposed him to work as a doctor in hospital. He later settled in the small village Kultuk and began a detailed study of
Baikal Lake with some technical support from the
Russian Geographical Society. He served as a medical doctor for the indigenous population of
Kamchatka, the
Aleutian Islands, the
Commander Islands,
Bering Island, making four trips per year around the populated areas there. After returning from Asia he continued research work at
Lwów University (Lemberg). He was a president of the
Polish Copernicus Society of Naturalists (1886–87). In 1927 the
Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union elected Dybowski as a member-correspondent. Apart from that in 1921 Dybowski was given an honorary doctorate by the
Warsaw's University, and in 1923 by the
University of Wilno. On Dybowski's 95th birthday he was congratulated by the
Shevchenko Scientific Society. Dybowski spent the last years of his life in
Lwów. Dybowski died at the age of 96. He is buried in
Lwów (present-day Lviv) on the
Łyczakowski Cemetery among the participants of the Polish Uprising of 1863. Most of his collection of zoological and botanical specimens is now in the Lwów Zoological museum. An
amphipod (
Gammaracanthuskytodermogammarus loricatobaicalensis), supposedly from Lake Baikal and named by him was once considered the
longest scientific name. However, that name is no longer considered valid. In February 2014, traveller
Jacek Pałkiewicz unveiled a memorial plaque to Dybowski in
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski. ==Taxon described by him==