Ramsay Heatley Traquair

Ramsay Heatley Traquair FRSE FRS (30 July 1840 – 22 November 1912) was a Scottish naturalist and palaeontologist who became a leading expert on fossil fish.

Traquair trained as a medical doctor, but his thesis was on aspects of fish anatomy. He held posts as Professor of Natural History and Professor of Zoology in England and Ireland, before returning to his native Edinburgh to take up a post at the Museum of Science and Art. He spent the rest of his career there, building up a renowned collection of fossil fish over a period of more than three decades.

He published extensively on palaeoichthyology, authoring many papers and a series of monographs. His studies of rocks and fossils in Scotland overturned earlier work on fossil fish, establishing new taxonomic classifications. His honours included fellowships from a range of learned societies, including the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Society of London, and the Geological Society of London. Among his awards for his work on fossil fish are the Lyell Medal and the Royal Medal. Traquair was married to the artist Phoebe Anna Traquair (née Moss) and they had two sons and a daughter, Ramsay, Henry (Harry) Moss, and Hilda. He retired in 1906 and died in 1912 at the age of 72.

Ramsay Heatley Traquair was born on 30 July 1840 in Rhynd, Perthshire, Scotland. His father, James, was a Church of Scotland clergyman, though the family moved to Edinburgh when the elder Traquair retired soon after the birth of Ramsay, his eighth and last child. Ramsay's mother, Elizabeth, died in 1843. Preparatory school education for the young Traquair was followed by schooling at the Edinburgh Institution. From 1857, he studied medicine and later fish anatomy at Edinburgh University, graduating with his medical degree after five years in August 1862. He was presented with a gold medal for his thesis on flatfish, on the "Asymmetry of the Pleuronectidae". The anatomists he studied and worked with at Edinburgh included John Goodsir and William Turner.

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