Richard Fortey

British paleontologist (1946 – 2025).

Richard Alan Fortey (15 February 1946 – 7 March 2025) was a British palaeontologist, natural historian, writer and television presenter, who served as president of the Geological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007. As a paleontologist, he specialised in trilobites and other extinct arthropods, as well as the life and paleogeography of the Paleozoic era, particularly the Ordovician. He wrote popular science books, notably Life: An Unauthorised Biography (1998) and Earth: An Intimate History (2005). Among other honors, he won the Lewis Thomas Prize and the Royal Society's Michae