Richard Fortey facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Richard Alan Fortey
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Fortey in 2014
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| Born | 15 February 1946 |
| Died | 7 March 2025 (aged 79) |
| Awards | Frink Medal (2000) Fellow of the Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize (2006) Linnean Medal (2006) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Paleontology |
| Institutions | University of Cambridge Natural History Museum |
Richard Alan Fortey (born 15 February 1946 – died 7 March 2025) was a British palaeontologist. This means he was a scientist who studied fossils to learn about ancient life. He was also a natural historian, writer, and a familiar face on television. For the 200th anniversary of the Geological Society of London in 2007, he was their president.
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Who Was Richard Fortey?
Richard Fortey grew up in Ealing, London, England. He went to Ealing Grammar School for Boys and then studied Natural Sciences at King's College, Cambridge. He earned his PhD and DSc degrees from the University of Cambridge.
Fortey passed away on 7 March 2025, at the age of 79, after a short illness.
A Career Studying Fossils
Richard Fortey spent many years as a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. His main interest was trilobites, which are ancient sea creatures with hard shells. He found his first trilobite when he was just 14 years old! This discovery sparked a lifelong passion that became his career.
He named many new species of trilobites. Even after he retired from the Museum, he kept researching these fascinating creatures. He also studied graptolites, another group of ancient marine animals. His work helped us understand how these animals evolved and lived. He also researched ancient geography, known as palaeogeography, to see how continents were arranged long ago.
Fortey wrote over 250 scientific papers about trilobites and the Ordovician period, a time in Earth's history.
Sharing Science on TV
Richard Fortey was also well-known for sharing his love of science with the public. From 2012, he presented natural history shows on BBC Four. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Bristol and the University of Oxford.
Fortey's TV Appearances
Fortey appeared in several programmes with the famous naturalist David Attenborough.
- In 1989, he was in the second episode of Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives.
- In 2010, he traveled with David Attenborough to the Atlas mountains for First Life. There, they looked for and filmed trilobite fossils.
- He also helped with The Future Is Wild, a documentary series that imagined what life might look like millions of years from now.
Fortey presented his own BBC Four series:
- In 2012, Survivors: Nature's Indestructible Creatures explored modern animals whose ancestors survived huge extinction events.
- In 2013, The Secret Life of Rock Pools aired, showing the amazing creatures found in rock pools.
- In 2014, he presented Fossil Wonderlands: Nature's Hidden Treasures, a three-part series.
- He also presented The Magic of Mushrooms, which showed how fungi are connected to plants and animals.
- In 2016, he presented Nature’s Wonderlands: Islands of Evolution, a three-part series about how life evolves differently on islands.
He even appeared on BBC Two's "University Challenge – The Professionals" in 2004. He was part of the Palaeontological Association team, who won against the Eden Project team.
Awards and Special Recognition
Richard Fortey received many honours for his work.
- In 2023, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to palaeontology and geology.
- He won several medals for his scientific research, including the Lyell Medal and the Linnean Medal.
- In 1997, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society, which is a very high honour for scientists.
- For his popular science writing, he won the Natural World Book of the Year award in 1994 for The Hidden Landscape.
- In 2003, he received the Lewis Thomas Prize for science writing.
- In 2006, he won the Michael Faraday Prize from the Royal Society for explaining science to the public.
- His book Life: An Unauthorised Biography was named one of the ten Books of the Year by The New York Times.
Fortey was also elected president of the Geological Society of London in 2007. He received honorary degrees from several universities, including the University of St Andrews and the Open University. In 2009, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Books by Richard Fortey
Richard Fortey wrote many popular science books that made geology and palaeontology exciting for everyone.
- Fossils: The Key to the Past, Natural History Museum (1982, fifth edition 2015)
- The Hidden Landscape, Jonathan Cape (1993)
- Life: An Unauthorised Biography. A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth, HarperCollins (1997)
- Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution, HarperCollins (2000)
- The Earth: An Intimate History, HarperCollins (2004)
- Dry Store Room no.1, HarperCollins (2008)
- Survivors : The animals and Plants that Time has Left Behind, HarperCollins (2011)
- The Wood for the Trees: The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood, William Collins (2016)
He also wrote some funny books using different names. He even wrote dinosaur poems for children and a spoof book about the Rubik's Cube.
