Alan Charig

Alan Jack Charig (born July 1, 1927 in London , † July 15, 1997 ibid) was a British paleontologist .

Youth and education

Born in 1927, he attended Haberdashers' Aske's School in Hampstead and later Emmanuel College in Cambridge . During his studies he was drafted into the Royal Armored Corps in World War II , where he learned Russian after training as a tank driver and subsequently worked as a translator. He later graduated from Cambridge with a degree in science and worked as an assistant for Rex Parrington . In this position he did his first own research.

Professional career

From 1957 to 1961 Charig was a research fellow at the British Museum of Natural History in the field of " Invertebrate Palaeontology " ( invertebrate paleontology), but in 1961 was appointed curator in the field of fossil amphibians , reptiles and birds . From 1964 he was a leading research associate there; he held this position until he retired from professional life in 1987. However, he continued his scientific work.
Alan Charig's work is one of the UK's foremost paleontologists.

Research areas

Live reconstruction of the baryonyx described by Charig and Milner

When he took his first post at the British Museum of Natural History, he was doing research on Cretaceous mollusks . Later he was particularly interested in dinosaurs. He described 1986 together with his colleague Angela Milner dinosaur Baryonyx , the large when discovered media interest moved up. The find plays a special role, as it clarified the paleobiology of the spinosaurids and provided evidence for piscivory . In 1997, shortly after Charig's death, the detailed monograph " Baryonyx walkeri, a fish-eating dinosaur from the Wealden of Surrey " was published, which he had also written together with his colleague Angela Milner.

He took part in numerous paleontological excavations, for example in Zambia and Tanzania (1963), Lesotho (1966-67), Queensland (Australia, 1978) and China (1982). In 1995 he visited numerous archaeological sites in Argentina .

Media work

Became famous for Alan Charig by his styled, ten-part BBC television series " Before the Ark " (Eng. " Before the Ark ") about extinct vertebrates (1974) with accompanying book. His popular science book “ A New Look at Dinosaurs ” (1979) became even more successful . He gained notoriety in the 1980s for his opposition to the claim that the London specimen of the ancient bird Archeopteryx was a fake.

Private life

In 1955 he married Marianne Jacoby († 1987), with whom he had three children. Alan Charig died of a stroke in 1997 .

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Individual evidence

1. ^ Alan J. Charig & Angela C. Milner: Baryonyx, a remarkable new theropod dinosaur . Nature 324, 1986; Pp. 359-361
2. ↑ Robert McG. & Thomas Jr .: Alan J. Charig, 70, Pursuer of Dinosaurs, Dies. The New York Times, July 28, 1997, accessed December 23, 2010 . 

literature

• Barry Cox: Obituary: Alan Charig. The Independent, August 13, 1997, accessed December 22, 2010 . 
• Alan J. Charig & Angela C. Milner: Baryonyx walkeri, a fish-eating dinosaur from the Wealden of Surrey . Bulletin of the Natural History Museum of London 53, 1997; Pp. 11-70