Angus Bellairs

(10/19/1990) Obituary: Professor Angus Bellairs
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Obituary: Professor Angus Bellairs
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ANGUS BELLAIRS was an eminent anatomist and one of the leading herpetologists of the twentieth century.

Born in 1918, Bellairs was educated at Stowe, Queen's College, Cambridge, and University College Hospital, London.He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps as Medical Officer to the 4th Division Engineers from 1942 to 1946 in North Africa, the Middle East and Italy; and later as Major in the Operational Research Group, 14th Army in India, Burma and Washington.It was during his time with the army that he developed an interest in herpetology, particularly reptiles, and it was apocryphal that he would show sympathy to those on sick parade if they were able to produce an interesting lizard even if they were malingerers.In India and Burma he would wander around searching for lizards guarded by a subaltern with a sub-machine gun.At the end of the war Bellairs was appointed Lecturer in Anatomy and Dental Anatomy at the London Hospital Medical School and in 1949 to a University Lectureship in Anatomy at Cambridge.He joined the institution that was to become his main base for the rest of his life, St Mary's Hospital Medical School, London in 1953 as first Reader in Anatomy and later Embryology and finally as Professor in Vertebrate Anatomy in 1970.

Bellairs's particular interest was in the structure and function of reptile and amphibian skulls and noses, especially those of lizards.He discovered the function of Jacobson's organ which acts as a second "nose" in lizards, the purpose of the excrescence on the end of a gharial's (a species of crocodile) nose, and investigated autonomy in reptiles.He published hundreds of scientific papers and wrote four books, The World of Reptiles with R. Carrington (1968); The Life of Reptiles (1969); Reptiles (with J. Attridge, 1975); The Isle of Sea Lizards (1989).He took especial pleasure in his last book, a thriller about university politics and prehistoric animals.

His academic honours and marks of international recognition are numerous.A physician, surgeon, anatomist, herpetologist and raconteur, Fellow and past member of Council of the Linnean Society, Fellow of the Zoological Society and Zoological Club (and Honorary Herpetologist) Founder and Honorary Member of the British Herpetological Society (and one-time Editor of the British Journal of Herpetology), Honorary Member of the American Society of Icthyologists and Herpetologists, and the American Society of Zoologists, and Trustee of the Hunterian Museum.

Bellairs travelled to many places to work: Algeria, South Africa, Kuwait (as visiting Professor), Galapagos, the US and Australia.He was touched and honoured by being invited by the world's community of zoologists to be President of the First World Congress of Herpetology at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, last year which was the largest such conference ever held, with delegates from 61 countries.

Throughout his life Angus Bellairs was always helpful and supportive.When interviewing a young zoologist for an appointment at Oxford to work with reptiles, he learnt the candidate knew nothing much about them and simply responded: "Well, I'm sure you'll pick it up as you go along."This generosity, and the belief he had in people, has left an enduring legacy amongst those he knew.He was described by the Australians as "the most refined and knowledgable 'gentleman' of zoology."