Norman Ira Platnick (December 30, 1951 – April 8, 2020) was an American biological systematist and arachnologist.

[1] At the time of his death, 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.

Dr. Quentin D. Wheeler stated "He is the best arachnologist of his generation, has published more monographs and nomenclatural contributions than anyone, period.

"[1] Platnick was one of the founding members of the Willi Hennig Society and its fourth President (1991–1992).

Platnick's later undertaking involved the goblin spiders of Oonopidae as a part of the Planetary Biodiversity Inventory, a project which includes scientific institutions from across the world.