Alexander Emmanuel Rodolphe Agassiz, son of Louis Agassiz and stepson of Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz, was an American scientist and engineer.
Robert McNeill Alexander was a British Zoologist and an authority in the field of biomechanics. Until 1970 he was mainly concerned with fish, investigating the mechanics of swim bladder, tails and the fish jaw mechanisms. Subsequently he concentrated on the mechanics of terrestrial locomotion, notably walking and running in mammals, particularly on gait selection and its relationship to anatomy and to the structural design of skeletons and muscles.
Alexander was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland and educated at Tonbridge School, Trinity Hall, Cambridge and the University of Wales.
After holding a lectureship at University College of North Wales 1958-1969, he was Professor of Zoology at the University of Leeds from 1969 until his retirement in 1999, when the title of emeritus professor was conferred on him.
He was Secretary of the Zoological Society of London 1992-1999. He was President of the Society for Experimental Biology 1995-1997, President of the International Society of Vertebrate Morphologists 1997-2001 and editor of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B 1998-2004.
Alexander married Ann Elizabeth Coulton in 1961. He died in 2016 at the age of 81.
Baird was a Scottish Zoologist and physician. He was best known for his 1850 work, The Natural History of British Entomostraca.
Baird studied at the High School of Edinburgh, before studying medicine at the universities of Edinburgh, Dublin and Paris. He was a surgeon for the East India Company from 1823 to 1833, travelling to India, China and other countries, and taking a keen interest in those countries' natural history. He helped found the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club in 1829. Baird practiced as a doctor in London until 1841, when he joined the zoology department of the British Museum (Natural History).
Abraham Dee Bartlett was the second son of John Bartlett and Jane Dunster. He was interested in animals as a child and his father's friend was Edward Cross, owner of the menagerie Exeter Exchange. He had a taxidermy business near the British Museum. Dead birds were sent to him for taxidermic preservation, and for his exhibits he received a gold medal at the Great Exhibition of 1851. He was among the first to reconstruct a specimen of the dodo, and this was displayed at Sydenham Crystal Palace, where he was appointed naturalist in 1852.
He associated himself with the Zoological Society of London and was offered the position of superintendent made vacant by the death of John Thompson at the garden in Regents Park in 1859. He was an agent for the acquisition of wild animals and was involved in their sale to circus agents. In 1882 he became unpopular after deciding to sell the African elephant Jumbo to P T Barnum. He became an authority on the care of wild animals and published papers in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London and other journals. He received a silver medal by the Society in 1872 and was made an associate of the Linnean Society in 1879.
Bartlett died in the zoo premises in 1897 after suffering from an illness. His son, Clarence, who had been assistant superintendent at the Zoo, took his position as superintendent. Another son, Edward, became a taxidermist and curator at the Maidstone Museum and the Raja Brooke's Museum. Several writings of Bartlett were published after his death in two books, 'Wild Animals in Captivity' (1898) and 'Life among Wild Beasts in the Zoo' (1900).
Frank Evers Beddard was born in Dudley, Worcestershire, the son of John Beddard. He was educated at Harrow and New College, Oxford.
Beddard was naturalist to the Challenger Expedition Commission from 1882-1884. In 1884 he was appointed prosector at the Zoological Society of London. He was also Vice-Secretary at the Society.
He became lecturer in biology at Guy's Hospital, examiner in zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of London, and lecturer in morphology at Oxford University.
Apart from his publications on wide-ranging topics in zoology such as isopoda, mammalia, ornithology, zoogeography and animal coloration, Beddard became noted as an authority on the annelids, publishing two books on the group and contributing articles on earthworms, leeches and the nematoda for the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica. Beddard contributed biographies of zoologists William Henry Flower and John Anderson for the Dictionary of National Biography. He was the author of volume 10 (mammalia) of the Cambridge Natural History. Beddard's olingo (Pocock, 1921) is named after him.
Bennett was an English Zoologist and writer. He was the elder brother of the botanist John Joseph Bennett. He was born at Hackney and practiced as a surgeon, but his chief pursuit was always zoology. In 1822 he attempted to establish an entomological society, which later became a zoological society in connection with the Linnean Society. This in turn became the starting point of the Zoological Society of London, of which Bennett was Secretary from 1831-1836.
His works included 'The Tower Menagerie' (1829) and 'The Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society (1831). He also wrote, in conjunction with G. T. Lay, the section of Fishes in the 'Zoology of Beechey's Voyage' (1839). In 1835 he described a new species of African crocodile, Mecistops leptorhynchus, the validity of which was confirmed in 2018.
Edward Blyth was an English zoologist who worked for most of his life in India as a curator of zoology at the museum of the Asiatic Society of India in Calcutta. In 1841 he travelled to India to become the curator of the museum of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal. He set about updating the museum's catalogues, publishing a Catalogue of the Birds of the Asiatic Society in 1849. He remained as curator until 1862, when ill-health forced his return to England. His Natural History of the Cranes was published posthumously in 1881. Avian species bearing his name include Blyth's hornbill, Blyth's leaf warbler, Blyth's hawk-eagle, Blyth's olive bulbul, Blyth's parakeet, Blyth's frogmouth, Blyth's reed warbler, Blyth's rosefinch, Blyth's shrike-babbler, Blyth's tragopan, Blyth's pipit and Blyth's kingfisher. Reptilian species and a genus bearing his name include Blythia reticulata, Eumeces blythianus, and Rhinophis blythii
George Albert Boulenger was a Belgian-British zoologist who described and gave scientific names to over 2,000 new animal species, chiefly fish, reptiles and amphibians. In 1880 he was invited to work at the Natural History Museum, then a department of the British Museum, and assigned to the task of cataloguing the amphibians in the collection. He was also an active botanist during the last 30 years of his life, especially in the study of roses. His son, Edward George Boulenger, was also a zoologist and held the post of Director at the ZSL London Zoo Aquarium
Geoffrey Allan Boxshall is a British zoologist and Merit researcher at the Natural History Museum, working primarily on copepods.
Son of Jack Boxshall a Canadian bank manager and Sybil Boxshall (nee Baker), a civil servant in the procurement department of the Ministry of Defence. He was educated at Churcher's College, Petersfield 1961-1968. He earned a First Class BSc in Zoology in 1971, and a PhD in 1974 from the University of Leeds. In 1994 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1998 he was awarded the Crustacean Society's Award for Excellence in Research.
In 1974 he joined the Natural History Museum's Department of Zoology, and joined Life Sciences in 2014. He had been the Secretary of the Zoological Society of London since 2011 and was Vice-President of the Linnean Society Council from 2012-2013.
Better known as Frank Buckland, he was an English surgeon, zoologist, author and natural historian. He was born in a noted family of naturalists. Frank was the first son of Canon William Buckland, a geologist and palaeontologist, and Mary Morland, a fossil collector.
He studied surgery under Caesar Hawkins at St George's Hospital. During this time he became acquainted with Abraham Dee Bartlett, Superintendent of London Zoo, who would send him dead animals at the zoo and he continued to keep many animals. Buckland was made a MRCS in 1851. He was appointed House Surgeon at St George's in 1852. He left St George's in 1853 and in August 1854 he joined the 2nd Life Guards as an assistant surgeon. This appointment left him time for his growing interest in natural history. Buckland gradually gave up medicine and surgery to devote himself to natural history and he was a pioneer of zoöphagy. He was one of the key members and founded of the acclimatisation society in Britain, an organisation that supported the introduction of new plants and animals as food sources which was influenced by his interest in eating and tasting a range of exotic animal meats.