Andrew Gray is a British zoologist, teacher and conservationist.

Biography

Andrew Gray was appointed Curator of Herpetology at

Manchester Museum Manchester Museum is a museum displaying works of archaeology, anthropology and natural history and is owned by the University of Manchester, in England. Sited on Oxford Road ( A34) at the heart of the university's group of neo-Gothic buildings, ...

in September 1995. Here he established ‘The Vivarium’, a free to the public purpose-built facility dedicated to the conservation of tropical amphibians. Gray's interest in

amphibians Amphibians are four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terrestrial, fossorial, arbore ...

and

reptiles Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the Class (biology), class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsid, sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, Squamata, squamates (lizar ...

began from a very early age. During his career as a professional herpetologist he has discovered new species and established conservation initiatives to save some of the rarest frogs in the world, for example the critically endangered

lemur leaf frog ''Agalychnis lemur'', the lemur leaf frog or lemur frog, is a species of frog in the subfamily Phyllomedusinae. It is found in Costa Rica, Panama, and adjacent northwestern Colombia. It is classed as Critically Endangered and threatened by the f ...

. Gray is an authority on frogs of the

Phyllomedusinae Phyllomedusinae is a subfamily of hylid tree frogs found in the Neotropics commonly called leaf frogs. Formerly, they were often considered as their own family, Phyllomedusidae. The subfamily is considered to be the sister group to the Austr ...

genus ''

Cruziohyla ''Cruziohyla'' is a genus of frogs in the subfamily Phyllomedusinae. They occur from Nicaragua and Honduras in Central America south to the Amazon Basin in South America. This genus was erected in 2005 following a major revision of the Hylidae an ...

''. He described the tadpole of ''

Cruziohyla calcarifer ''Cruziohyla calcarifer'', the splendid leaf frog or splendid treefrog, is a species of tree frog of the subfamily Phyllomedusinae described in 1902 by George Albert Boulenger. It has a distribution from Esmeraldas Province in northwestern Ecuad ...

'' and in 2018 described the new species ''

Cruziohyla sylviae ''Cruziohyla sylviae'', also known as Sylvia's tree frog, is a large colourful species of tree frog from Central America. Description and taxonomy The species was described in 2018 by zoologist Andrew Gray, and is named after his granddaughter. ...

'' which is named after his first grandchild Sylvia Beatrice Gray. Gray's conservation efforts have mainly focused in Central America, where he has initiated multi-disciplined collaborative projects, developed international environmental education programmes, and jointly established student field courses for the University of Manchester. In 2006 Gray was a main scientific adviser for the BBC's landmark series

Planet Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surface ...

and worked further with

Sir David Attenborough Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural histor ...

on the BBC Natural World's programme ''Fabulous Frogs''. Apart from wildlife conservation, Gray also has an keen interest in conserving English heritage and in 2004 completely restored the then derelict

Euxton Hall Chapel Euxton Hall Chapel is situated in the village of Euxton, Lancashire, England. It was designed by architect E. W. Pugin (1834–1875), and built in 1866 as a private chapel for the Anderton family. Set within the grounds of Euxton Hall, and a Gra ...

, which was designed by

E. W. Pugin Edward Welby Pugin (11 March 1834 – 5 June 1875) was an English architect, the eldest son of architect Augustus Pugin, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin and Louisa Barton and part of the Pugin & Pugin family of church architects. His father was ...

in 1866.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, Andrew Living people 20th-century British zoologists 21st-century British zoologists British conservationists Year of birth missing (living people) Manchester Museum people