R. A. Stirton: pioneer of Australian mammalian palaeontology

Beginning in 1953, under the inspired leadership of R.A. Stirton, in just over one decade, a systematic program to discover new fossil sites and specimens of Australian terrestrial mammals, dramatically increased the knowledge of their Neogene history on this continent. At the beginning of this program, only a single incomplete skeleton and a handful of isolated teeth of terrestrial mammals were known from three sites. When Stirton died in 1966, nine additional Neogene terrestrial mammal sites had been found and dozens of new species of mammals had been recognized, and in many cases published on–all the result of Stirton’s foresight and determination.