Ellen Clark (1915–1988) was an Australian carcinologist and naturalist, whose work focused on

crustacean Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean gro ...

s and ants Clark studied, named, described and published many of the Australian freshwater

crayfish Crayfish are freshwater crustaceans belonging to the clade Astacidea, which also contains lobsters. In some locations, they are also known as crawfish, craydids, crawdaddies, crawdads, freshwater lobsters, mountain lobsters, rock lobsters, ...

species. By 1939, she was reported to have identified more than half the known species of Australian crayfish. She conducted research about blood groups in crustaceans and made a significant contribution to the study of crayfish genera. She was the first woman to publish in the '' Memoirs of the National Museum of Victoria''. Ellen Clark's crayfish, ''Euastacus clarkae'', was named after Clark in recognition of her pioneering parastacid studies. Clark's work has had a lasting legacy and is still being debated in scientific papers.

References

Australian scientists 1915 births 1988 deaths Women naturalists 20th-century Australian women {{Australia-scientist-stub