Alick Donald Walker (26 October 1925 – 4 December 1999) was a British

palaeontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

, after whom the ''

Alwalkeria ''Alwalkeria'' (; "for Alick Walker") is a genus partly based on basal saurischian dinosaur remains from the Late Triassic, living in India. A thighbone found indicates a small bipedal form. It has been seen as a chimera. Etymology This taxon w ...

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

is named. He was born in

Skirpenbeck Skirpenbeck is a village and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is situated north-west of Stamford Bridge just north of the A166 road. According to the 2011 UK census, Skirpenbeck parish had a population of 192, an i ...

, near

York York is a cathedral city with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many hist ...

and attended Pocklington School from 1936 to 1943. He began a degree course in engineering at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

, but dropped out in 1944. In 1948 he returned to university after national service, reading Geology at the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a Red brick university, red brick Russell Group research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Society of Merchant Venturers, Merchant Venturers' sc ...

. On graduation, he join the research group of Professor Stanley Westoll at the

University of Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is a red brick unive ...

, working on the fossil reptiles of the

Late Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch ...

found in

Elgin Elgin may refer to: Places Canada * Elgin County, Ontario * Elgin Settlement, a 19th-century community for freed slaves located in present-day North Buxton and South Buxton, Chatham-Kent, Ontario * Elgin, a village in Rideau Lakes, Ontario ...

. He was appointed Lecturer in

Geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...

in 1954, while working on his PhD. The bony remains of the Elgin reptile

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

were poor, sometimes just indentations in rocks. Walker devised a new casting method to capture the anatomical information in these fossils, using PVC; many of the resulting casts are now in the

National Museum of Scotland The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland, was formed in 2006 with the merger of the new Museum of Scotland, with collections relating to Scottish antiquities, culture and history, and the adjacent Royal Scottish Museum (opened in ...

and the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more ...

. His early work was also notable for reclassifying and naming the English

theropod Theropoda (; ), whose members are known as theropods, is a dinosaur clade that is characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. Theropods are generally classed as a group of saurischian dinosaurs. They were ancestrally ...

dinosaurs ''

Eustreptospondylus ''Eustreptospondylus'' ( ; meaning "true ''Streptospondylus''") is a genus of megalosaurid theropod dinosaur, from the Oxfordian stage of the Late Jurassic period (some time between 163 and 154 million years ago) in southern England, at a ...

'' and ''

Metriacanthosaurus ''Metriacanthosaurus'' (meaning "moderately-spined lizard") is a genus of metriacanthosaurid dinosaur from the upper Oxford Clay of England, dating to the Late Jurassic period, about 160 million years ago (lower Oxfordian). History of discove ...

''. In the late 1960s Walker studied the origin of crocodilians and of birds, which became controversial in 1972 with his publication of a paper in ''Nature'' arguing for a close relationship between

sphenosuchia Sphenosuchia is a suborder of basal crocodylomorphs that first appeared in the Triassic and occurred into the Middle Jurassic. Most were small, gracile animals with an erect limb posture. They are now thought to be ancestral to crocodyliforms, a ...

crocodylomorph Crocodylomorpha is a group of pseudosuchian archosaurs that includes the crocodilians and their extinct relatives. They were the only members of Pseudosuchia to survive the end-Triassic extinction. During Mesozoic and early Cenozoic times, cro ...

s and

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

. He later accepted that this hypothesis might be incorrect in a 1985 paper on ''

Archaeopteryx ''Archaeopteryx'' (; ), sometimes referred to by its German name, "" ( ''Primeval Bird''), is a genus of bird-like dinosaurs. The name derives from the ancient Greek (''archaīos''), meaning "ancient", and (''ptéryx''), meaning "feather" ...

''.

Selected publications

* Walker AD. 1964. Triassic reptiles from the Elgin area: Ornithosuchus and the origin of carnosaurs. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 248: 53–134. * Walker AD. 1972. New light on the origin of birds and crocodiles. Nature 237: 257–263 * Walker AD. 1985. The braincase of ''Archaeopteryx''. In: Hecht MK, Ostrom JH, Viohl G, Wellnhofer P, eds. The Beginnings of Birds, pp. 123–134. Freunde des Jura-Museums Eichstätt, Germany.

References

Alick D. Walker 1925–1999: an appreciation
Benton and Walker, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2002, 136, 1–5 {{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, Alick 1925 births 1999 deaths People from Stamford Bridge, East Riding of Yorkshire British palaeontologists Alumni of the University of Bristol Alumni of Newcastle University Academics of Newcastle University Alumni of the University of Cambridge Scientists from Yorkshire People educated at Pocklington School