Sri Lankan Wins Prestigious Linnean Medal

Recognises a sterling career in naturalism

By the time well-known Sri Lankan naturalist Dr. Rohan Pethiyagoda received his ultimate accolade from the world of global science, he had achieved more than the lion’s share of the spotlight – both at home and abroad.

In fact, the renowned conservationist had already attained a degree of immortality by having not one but several newly discovered species named after him; and one of these was a singular honour indeed by virtue of representing the first time that a non-Sri Lankan genus had been named after someone from our tropical paradise – ‘where every prospect pleases but only man is vile…’

The list alone of the sheer number of new species named in his honour is impressive enough. These include the fishes Dawkinsia rohani and Rasboroides rohani; the Microhylid frog Uperodon rohani; the dragon lizard Calotes pethiyagodai; the jumping spider Onomastus pethiyagodai; and a dragonfly rejoicing in a mouthful of a name… Macromidia donaldi pethiyagodai!

Also to his credit, Pethiyagoda bestowed a touch of the eternal on fellow zoologist Richard Dawkins when the former naturalist and his colleagues named a genus of South Asian freshwater fishes to celebrate the famous evolutionary biologist.

This is in addition to a kaleidoscope of taxa named by Sri Lanka’s arguably best-known taxonomist. Born in Colombo in 1955, Pethiyagoda is a Thomian, and the holder of a bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronic engineering from King’s College London, and an MPhil in biomedical engineering from the University of Sussex.

Following a brief stint as an engineer attached to the Ministry of Health and later, longer service as Director of its Division of Biomedical Engineering, he resigned from government office to begin work on a project to explore Sri Lanka’s freshwater fishes – out of which came an illustrated book on the island’s aquatic fauna.

In 1988, deeply worried about Sri Lanka’s rapidly diminishing montane canopy, Pethiyagoda launched an ongoing project to convert abandoned tea plantations – he served as Chairman of the Sri Lanka Tea Board (2015-2018) – for which he received a Rolex Award for Enterprise.

And the acme of recognition that this epitome of a Renaissance man – author, administrator, public policy advocate, naturalist, taxonomist, biodiversity conservationist – gained was when he received the Linnean Medal from the Linnean Society of London in 2022.

In doing so, Pethiyagoda became the first Sri Lankan and second Asian to win ‘the Nobel prize for naturalists’ since that medal’s inception in 1888.

Pethiyagoda became the first Sri Lankan and second Asian to win ‘the Nobel prize for naturalists’ since that award’s inception in 1888