Angus d'Albini Bellairs (11 January 1918 – 26 September 1990) was a British professor of vertebrate morphology and a specialist in herpetology. He published a landmark two volume ''The Life of Reptiles'' (1970). Bellairs studied at

Stowe School The Stowe School is a public school (English private boarding school) for pupils aged 13–18 in the countryside of Stowe, England. It was opened on 11 May, 1923 at Stowe House, a Grade I Heritage Estate belonging to the British Crown. ...

Queens' College, Cambridge Queens' College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Queens' is one of the 16 "old colleges" of the university, and was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou. Its buildings span the R ...

, and

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

. He joined the

Royal Army Medical Corps The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) was a specialist corps in the British Army which provided medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. On 15 November 2024, the corps was amalgamated with the Royal Army De ...

in 1942 and served in north Africa, the Middle East, Italy, India and Burma. On his travels he took an interest in natural history and collected numerous specimens. After military service he obtained a comparative anatomy position in the department of human anatomy at the London Hospital Medical College, followed by similar positions at Cambridge University and St. Mary's Hospital Medical School. In 1970 he became Professor of Vertebrate Anatomy in the University of London. Some of his major contributions to herpetology where on the function of

Jacobson's organ The vomeronasal organ (VNO), or Jacobson's organ, is the paired auxiliary olfactory (smell) sense organ located in the soft tissue of the nasal septum, in the nasal cavity just above the roof of the mouth (the hard palate) in various tetrapods. T ...

, the egg tooth of snakes, and the snout of the gharial. The fossil lizard '' Bellairsia'' was named after him by Professor

Susan E. Evans Susan Elizabeth Evans is a British palaeontologist and herpetologist. She is the author or co-author of over 100 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. She received a BSc in Zoology at Bedford College (London), Bedford College in 1974, and i ...

.Evans, Susan E. (1998). Crown group lizards (Reptilia, Squamata) from the Middle Jurassic of the British Isles. ''Palaeontographica Abteilung A'' 250:123-154

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bellairs, Angus 1918 births 1990 deaths 20th-century British zoologists British herpetologists British Army personnel of World War II Royal Army Medical Corps soldiers Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge People educated at Stowe School Alumni of University College London