Richard Lydekker

All you want to know about Richard Lydekker

Richard Lydekker (July 25, 1849 - April 16, 1915) was an English naturalist, geologist and writer of numerous books on natural history.

Lydekker was born in London. In 1874 he joined the Geological Survey of India and made studies of the vertebrate paleontology of northern India (especially Kashmir). He was responsible for the cataloguing of the fossil mammals, reptiles and birds in the Natural History Museum. His books included A Manual of Palaeontology (with Henry Alleyne Nicholson, 1889) and The Wild Animals of India, Burma, Malaya, and Tibet.

Lydekker was also influential in the science of biogeography. In 1895 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.

Lydekker wrote the Royal Natural History London, Frederick Warne, 1893-94 a six volume popular work.