Richard Lydekker

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Template:Short description Template:EngvarB Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox scientist Richard Lydekker (Template:IPAc-en; 25 July 1849 – 16 April 1915) was a British naturalist, geologist and writer of numerous books on natural history.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> He was known for his contributions to zoology, paleontology, and biogeography. He worked extensively in cataloging fossil vertebrates and describing new species, particularly from India, where he spent several years studying the region's prehistoric fauna.

Lydekker was a key figure in the field of vertebrate paleontology, authoring numerous scientific papers and books that helped classify extinct and extant species.

Biography

Richard Lydekker was born at Tavistock Square in London. His father was Gerard Wolfe Lydekker, a barrister-at-law with Dutch ancestry. The family moved to Harpenden Lodge soon after Richard's birth.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took a first-class in the Natural Science tripos (1872).<ref>Template:Acad</ref> In 1874 he joined the Geological Survey of India and made studies of the vertebrate palaeontology of northern India (especially Kashmir). He remained in this post until the death of his father in 1881. His main work in India was on the Siwalik palaeofauna; it was published in Palaeontologia Indica. He was responsible for the cataloguing of the fossil mammals, reptiles, and birds in the Natural History Museum (10 vols., 1891).<ref name=EB>Template:Cite EB1922</ref>

He named a variety of taxa including the golden-bellied mangabey; as a taxon authority he is named simply as "Lydekker".<ref>Template:Cite iucn</ref>

Biogeography

File:Map of Sunda and Sahul.svg
Map of Sunda and Sahul, showing Lydekker's Line

He was influential in the science of biogeography. In 1896 he delineated the biogeographical boundary through Indonesia, known as Lydekker's Line, that separates Wallacea on the west from Australia-New Guinea on the east.<ref name="Lydekker1896">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=EB/> It follows the edge of the Sahul Shelf, an area from New Guinea to Australia of shallow water with the Aru Islands on its edge. Along with Wallace's Line and others,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> it indicates the definite effect of geology on the biogeography of the region, something not seen so clearly in other parts of the world.<ref name="GillespieClague2009">Template:Cite book</ref>

First cuckoo

Lydekker attracted amused public attention with a pair of letters to The Times in 1913, when he wrote on 6 February that he had heard a cuckoo, contrary to Yarrell's History of British Birds which doubted the bird arrived before April. Six days later on 12 February 1913, he wrote again, confessing that "the note was uttered by a bricklayer's labourer". Letters about the first cuckoo became a tradition in the newspaper.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Awards

He received the Lyell Medal from the Geological Society of London in 1902.<ref>Template:Cite newspaper The Times</ref>

File:MantisShrimpLyd.jpg
Drawing of a mantis shrimp by Richard Lydekker, 1896

Works

See also

References

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