Encyclopedia of Evolution.pdf - Online Reading Center

Leakey, Richard
Richard Leakey, in the fossil vault of the Kenya National Museum, displays four of the important fossil discoveries made by his team: from left to right,
a robust australopithecine (Paranthropus aethipicus), Homo habilis, Skull 0 (probably H. rudolfensis), and H. ergaster. (Courtesy of Kenneth Garrett,
National Geographic Society)
England to study for a degree. He soon returned to Kenya
to lead safaris and scientific expeditions, and to work at the
National Museum of Kenya. He never finished his degree.
Persistence and experience paid off despite the lack of
formal academic training. Richard Leakey convinced the
National Geographic Society, who had sponsored his parents’
research, to sponsor his own excavations near Lake
Rudolf (now Lake Turkana) in Kenya, and in 1968 he was
appointed the director of the National Museum of Kenya.
He found many hominin fossils at the Lake Rudolf site,
including KNM-ER 1470, a relatively large-brained Homo
Habilis that may represent a different species (H. rudolfensis).
Because this hominin had such a large brain at such an
ancient date, it has raised the possibility that the australopithecines
were not on the main line of human evolution, a
position long held by Louis Leakey (see photo).
Richard Leakey recovered from a kidney disease that
nearly killed him and returned to fieldwork and operated
Kenya’s museum system in 1980. In 1984 Kamoya Kimeu
who worked with Leakey’s team discovered one of the most
important fossils in the study of human evolution: the Nariokotome
Skeleton (called the Turkana Boy), a nearly complete
specimen of Homo ergaster. Leakey’s team also discovered
fossils of new species of robust australopithecines.
Years of fieldwork had convinced Richard Leakey that
something had to be done to protect Africa’s wildlife from
extinction. He switched his focus from anthropology to conservation.
As director of the Kenya Wildlife Service from
1989 to 1994, he undertook ambitious measures against
elephant and rhinoceros poaching. He staged a mass burning
of elephant tusks that had been confiscated from poachers,
which brought the problem to world attention and helped to
deflate the market for ivory. Political opposition forced his
resignation, after a plane crash. Since 1994 Richard Leakey
has been involved in an opposition political party and was
elected to the Kenyan Parliament in 1997. After a career in
anthropology, he had careers in conservation and then in politics.
In 1970 Richard married Meave Epps, a primate zoologist
working in Kenya. Meave Leakey was soon to make her
own numerous and important contributions to the study of
human evolution. Since 1989 Meave Leakey has been the
Leakey family leader in anthropological research. She and her
team have discovered two hominin species: Australopithecus