A biography of the eminent arachnologist and systematic biologist, Norman I. Platnick, Curator Emeritus at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, is presented.

The complete bibliography of the late Norman I. Platnick is presented. His scientific contribution, published over the course of 39 years, includes almost 12,000 pages in 340 printed publications, including 42 monographs, six books and two edited volumes on subjects ranging from the theory and practice of systematics and historical biogeography to the taxonomy of spiders (Araneae), an online searchable database, the World Spider Catalog, and two children's books. During the past 22 years, he self-published 27 full-color books and three articles on the illustration art of magazine covers, advertisements, and articles from America's ‘Golden Age of Illustration’ (1905–1920).

A list of the 2,196 arachnid taxa (Araneae: 2181, Ricinulei: 13) described by the late Norman I. Platnick, is presented: two families (in synonymy); 159 genera (2 homonyms, 1 synonym), 2,035 species (6 synonyms).

A list of 58 patronyms honoring the late Norman I. Platnick at the time of publication, is presented: six genera of spiders (Araneae Clerck, 1757), NormplatnickaRix and Harvey, 2010, PlatnickiaJocqué, 1991, Platnickina Koçak and Kemal, 2008, PlatnickniaÖzdikmen and Demir, 2009 (= ModisimusSimon, 1893), PlatnickopodaJäger, 2020, and PlatnickMarusik and Fomichev, 2020, with their subordinate species; 41 species of spiders (in 23 families), three scorpions (Scorpiones C. L. Koch, 1837), three harvestmen (Opiliones Sundevall, 1833), two hooded-tick spiders (Ricinulei Thorell, 1876), a whip spider (Amblypygi Thorell, 1833), a false scorpion (Pseudoscorpiones Haeckel, 1866), and a millipede (Diplopoda Blainville, 1844).

Lectotypes are designated for two species of Vespinae: Dolichovespula arctica (Rohwer) and Vespula intermedia (du Buysson). Dolichovespula albida (Sladen) is diagnostically distinct from D. norwegica (Fabricius), therefore it is a distinct phylogenetic species. This is also the case for Vespula intermedia versus V. rufa (Linnaeus).