English zoologist 1847-1929, Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford; professor at London University, Director of British Museum (Natural History), He had a wide range of interests which included comparative anatomy and anthropology. In 1920 he was considered the ???reatest living zoologist, following Huxley.??His early studies of bacteria and protozoa laid foundations on which a vast superstructure was built. His contributions to embryology and its classification enabled great strides of zoological progress. At the beginning of the 20th century, Lankester had become a well-known gifted public figure, member of the Royal Society, at the apex of the British scientific establishment. He was well acquainted with Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes stories. He was a close friend of author H.G.Wells, and also of Karl Marx, the German philosopher and socialist revolutionary.