Adrian Lister

Adrian Lister is a Research Leader in palaeontology at the Natural History Museum. He obtained his BA and PhD in Zoology from the University of Cambridge, and from 1991 taught at University College London where he became Professor of Palaeobiology, before moving to the Natural History Museum in 2007.  His research interests are in the evolution of mammals during the Quaternary ice ages, on which he has authored nearly 200 scientific papers, while his two books on mammoths have sold over 60,000 copies in six languages.  Other research interests include the dwarfing of mammals on islands, the causes of extinction of large mammals at the end of the ice age, and Darwin’s fossil collections from the Beagle voyage, which formed the basis for his most recent book, Darwin’s Fossils. As well as his research on fossil mammals, Adrian Lister also studies the taxonomy of their living representatives, and has led expeditions to study living elephants in Nepal, India, Ghana and Borneo. He is a frequent contributor and advisor to TV and radio programmes on fossil and living mammals.