Richard Fortey, who has died aged 79, enjoyed a long career as head of palaeontology at the Natural History Museum, with a particular interest in trilobites, woodlouse-shaped marine arthropods that roamed the oceans for around 270 million years.
His work on trilobites changed ideas about how continents moved.
In his last book, Close Encounters of the Fungal Kind (2024), he returned to one of his first loves, drawing together history, geography, language, literature, scientific method and even touches of science fiction in celebration of the morels, puffballs, stinkhorns, inkcaps and magic mushrooms found on his rambles over more than 60 years. Fortey was a born communicator whose documentaries for BBC Four explored such diverse interests as The Secret Life of Rockpools, The Magic of Mushrooms and Islands of Evolution.
The Magic of Mushrooms is one that all fungiphiles should see.
