Lieuwe Dirk Boonstra (1905 – 1975) was a South African

palaeontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

whose work focused on the

mammal-like reptiles Synapsida is a diverse group of tetrapod vertebrates that includes all mammals and their extinct relatives. It is one of the two major clades of the group Amniota, the other being the more diverse group Sauropsida (which includes all extant rept ...

of the Middle ( ''Tapinocephalus'' Assemblage Zone) and

Late Permian Late or LATE may refer to: Everyday usage * Tardy, or late, not being on time * Late (or the late) may refer to a person who is dead Music * ''Late'' (The 77s album), 2000 * Late (Alvin Batiste album), 1993 * Late!, a pseudonym used by Dave Groh ...

, whose fossil remains are common in the South African

Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe Khoemana (also known as !Orakobab or Korana) word is a semidesert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its extent is ...

. He was the author of a large number of papers on Therapsids and

Pareiasaur Pareiasaurs (meaning "cheek lizards") are an extinct clade of large, herbivorous parareptiles. Members of the group were armoured with osteoderms which covered large areas of the body. They first appeared in southern Pangea during the Middle Per ...

s, and described and revised a number of

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

Work

In 1927 Boonstra was appointed Assistant Palaeontologist of the

South African Museum The Iziko South African Museum, formerly the South African Museum (Afrikaans: Suid-Afrikaanse Museum), is a South African national museum located in Cape Town. The museum was founded in 1825, the first in the country. It has been on its present ...

and promoted to Palaeontologist in 1931. He remained at the museum until his retirement in 1972. He was the sole curator of the museum's Karoo vertebrate fossil collection for 45 years.

Awards

He was awarded the Queen Victoria Scholarship by the University of Stellenbosch and received the Havenga prize for Biology from Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns in 1959.

Publications

Volume 64 of the ''Annals of the South African Museum'' (1974) was dedicated to Boonstra. The 88 publications and books he wrote between 1928 and 1969 are listed in it.

References

External links

South African Museum - Dr. Boonstra's Publications
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Brief biography of Lieuwe Dirk Boonstra
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Boonstra, Lieuwe Dirk South African paleontologists 1905 births 1975 deaths