Alec Frederick Fraser-Brunner (born 6 April 1906—died 17 Sept 1986) was a British

ichthyologist Ichthyology is the branch of zoology devoted to the study of fish, including bony fish (Osteichthyes), cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes), and jawless fish (Agnatha). According to FishBase, 33,400 species of fish had been described as of October ...

. His career included work with the

Colonial Office The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created to deal with the colonial affairs of British North America but required also to oversee the increasing number of col ...

, the

Food and Agriculture Organization The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...

, and as the curator of the Van Kleef Aquarium in Singapore and the aquarium at Edinburgh Zoo. Amongst his written works is ''Cussons Book of Tropical Fishes'', published as result of Manchester industrialist Alexander Tom Cussons' interest in

tropical fish Tropical fish are generally those fish found in aquatic tropical environments around the world. Fishkeepers often keep tropical fish in freshwater and saltwater aquariums. The term "tropical fish" is not a taxonomic group, but rather is a ge ...

. Cussons had a keen interest in orchids. The hot-houses in which he grew them proved to be well-suited to tropical fish aquariums.
Alec Frederick Fraser-Brunner is the designer of Singapore's iconic national symbol, the Merlion. The Merlion was originally designed for the

Singapore Tourism Board The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry of the Government of Singapore The Government of Singapore is defined by the Constitution of Singapore to mean the executive branch of the ...

as their logo in 1964. It went on to be sculpted by Mr Lim Nang Seng and completed in 1972. It now sits at Merlion Park in Marina Bay.

References

1906 births 1986 deaths British ichthyologists Taxon authorities 20th-century British zoologists {{UK-zoologist-stub