Paleoanthropologist and conservationist Richard Leakey died the other day (January 2), Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta announced.Born in Nairobi to accomplished paleontologist moms and dads Louis and Mary Leakey, Richard was the second of 3 kids. At age 6, he uncovered his first fossil, an extinct huge pigs jaw, reports National Geographic. At initially, Leakey was reluctant to follow in his parents footsteps, instead dropping out of school at 16 and pursuing interests such as trapping animals for museums and universities, flying, and offering safari trips, according to a profile by the American Academy of Achievement. In 1965, he travelled to London in an attempt to continue his education. Rather of finishing his degree in anthropology, Leakey went back to Kenya where he handled paleontological explorations, according to The New York Times.STONY BROOK UNIVERSITYIn 1968, he was selected director of the National Museum of Kenya. Throughout his tenure there, he excavated hundreds of fossils from the Lake Turkana location, consisting of a popular Homo habilis skull named “1470” which is over 2.5 million years of ages and worked as evidence that anatomically modern human beings origins extend farther back than prepared for Leakey married Meave Epps, an English zoologist, in 1970. Leakey and his team, who were called the “Hominid Gang,” uncovered lots of ancient human remains and tools from the early Stone Age that went back to nearly 2 million years earlier, National Geographic reports. His findings landed him on a 1977 cover of TIME publication. In 1984, Leakey and his coworkers found “Turkana Boy,” a 1.6-million-year-old, practically complete skeleton of a male Homo erectus, reports the Times. Lawrence Martin, Stony Brook University paleoprimatologist, tells the Times that Leakey “has most likely been accountable for producing near to half of the worlds proof for human advancement.”Leakey was designated head of the Kenya Wildlife Service in 1989 where he took on the more political mantle of an enthusiastic conservationist, burning lots of taken ivory in Nairobi National Park, National Geographic notes. During the 1990s, he wrote numerous books about the origins and development of humans. In 1993, he made it through an airplane crash, and both of his legs had actually to be amputated below the knees. A few years later, while working as cofounder and secretary general of the political celebration Safina, he was openly whipped outside a courthouse by members of an opposing political party, according to the American Academy of Achievement. Undaunted, he was elected to parliament in 1997 and served for 4 years.After retiring from his political position in 2001, Leakey transferred to the US and became a professor of anthropology at Stony Brook University. In 2004, he founded the conservation organization WildlifeDirect, which supplies an online platform for African conservationists to raise awareness and protect wildlife. In a homage to Leakey by WildlifeDirect, the conservationist is explained as “a mentor to lots of Africans in varied fields” and someone who “had played a crucial role in forming the worlds view on Africas place in the human advancement story, on the advancement of multi party democracy in Kenya, and on influencing environment change discussion.”In partnership with Stony Brook University, Leakey likewise released the Turkana Basin Institute, which oversees permanent field study facilities in Kenya. Lawrence Martin, the institutes director, tells National Geographic, “He made East Africa the main playing field for the study of human evolution.”University of Wisconsin-Madison paleoanthropologist John Hawks credits Leakey for “developing a whole clinical, interdisciplinary infrastructure that allowed discoveries,” he tells the Times. Leakey is likewise the creator of a museum called Ngaren, located in the Rift Valley, Kenya, at the site of the Turkana Boy discovery. That facility is set to begin this year and will focus on mankinds origins, typical ancestry, and advancement. The museums webpage quotes Leakey as saying, “I think that if we can make the science of the origins of mankind amazing and available to everyone, and show people the fantastic journey of humankind, we can move paradigms and alter the world.”According to WildlifeDirects homage, Leakey is made it through by his other half Meave Leakey, also an acknowledged paleontologist, and their two children.
Paleoanthropologist and conservationist Richard Leakey died the other day (January 2), Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta announced.Born in Nairobi to accomplished paleontologist moms and dads Louis and Mary Leakey, Richard was the second of 3 kids. Instead of finishing his degree in anthropology, Leakey returned to Kenya where he handled paleontological expeditions, according to The New York Times.STONY BROOK UNIVERSITYIn 1968, he was designated director of the National Museum of Kenya.”Leakey was designated head of the Kenya Wildlife Service in 1989 where he took on the more political mantle of a passionate conservationist, burning tons of taken ivory in Nairobi National Park, National Geographic notes.”According to WildlifeDirects homage, Leakey is survived by his wife Meave Leakey, likewise a recognized paleontologist, and their two daughters.