Zoologist and author of numerous scientific and popular works; director of the Warsaw Zoo. Under the German occupation he took part in military actions of the conspiracy movement and in the Warsaw uprising. During the Holocaust, he and his wife Antonina rescued many Jews by helping them escape from the ghetto and hiding them in the zoo manged by them. Among the rescued were the sculptor Magdalena Gross and Rachela Auerbach. The Żabiński couple were recognised as Righteous Among the Nations.