Richard Ellis (born April 2, 1938) is an American

marine biologist Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms in the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology classifies sp ...

, author, and illustrator. He is a research associate in the American Museum of Natural History's division of

paleontology 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 fos ...

, special adviser to the American Cetacean Society, and a member of the

Explorers Club The Explorers Club is an American-based international multidisciplinary professional society with the goal of promoting scientific exploration and field study. The club was founded in New York City in 1904, and has served as a meeting point fo ...

. He was U.S. delegate to

International Whaling Commission The International Whaling Commission (IWC) is a specialised regional fishery management organisation, established under the terms of the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) to "provide for the proper conservation ...

from 1980 to 1990. His paintings have been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world, and his murals can be seen in the

Denver Museum of Natural History The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is a municipal natural history and science museum in Denver, Colorado. It is a resource for informal science education in the Rocky Mountain region. A variety of exhibitions, programs, and activities help ...

, the

New Bedford Whaling Museum The New Bedford Whaling Museum is a museum in New Bedford, Massachusetts, United States that focuses on the history, science, art, and culture of the international whaling industry, and the "Old Dartmouth" region (now the city of New Bedford and ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

, and Whaleworld, a museum in

Albany, Western Australia Albany ( ; nys, Kinjarling) is a port city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyc ...

. He is the author of more than 100 magazine articles, which have appeared in ''National Geographic'', ''Natural History'', ''Audubon'', ''Curator'', ''National Wildlife'', ''Geo'', ''Australian Geographic'', and ''Reader's Digest''. He has written 23 books, including ''The Book of Sharks,'' ''The Book of Whales'', ''Dolphins and Porpoises'', ''Men and Whales'', ''Great White Shark'' (with John McCosker), ''Encyclopedia of the Sea'', ''Aquagenesis: The Origin and Evolution of Life in the Sea'', ''Deep Atlantic'', ''Monsters of the Sea'', ''Imagining Atlantis'', '' The Search for the Giant Squid'', ''Tiger Bone & Rhino Horn'', ''No Turning Back: The Life and Death of Animal Species'', ''Sea Dragons: Predators of Prehistoric Seas'', ''Tuna'', ''The Empty Ocean'', and ''Swordfish: A Biography of the Ocean Gladiator''. ''On Thin Ice'' looks into the changing world of polar bears and highlights their problems caused by

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in a broader sense also includes ...

and disappearing Arctic ice. In 2011 the University Press of Kansas published ''The Great Sperm Whale: A Natural History of the Ocean's Most Magnificent and Mysterious Creature''. Richard Ellis curated a show on sharks in art for the Fort Lauderdale Art Museum, from May 2012 to January 2013.

References

External links

Profiles in Science in the New York Times
Cetologists American marine biologists American science writers Living people 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters American muralists People associated with the American Museum of Natural History 1938 births 20th-century American male artists {{US-biologist-stub