Angus d'Albini Bellairs (11 January 1918 – 26 September 1990) was a British professor of vertebrate morphology and a specialist in herpetology. He published a landmark two volume ''The Life of Reptiles'' (1970). Bellairs studied at

Stowe School , motto_translation = I stand firm and I stand first , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent school, day & boarding , religion = Church of England , president = , head_label = Headmaster ...

, Queen's College, Cambridge, and

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

. He joined the

Royal Army Medical Corps The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps a ...

in 1942 and served in north Africa, the Middle East, Italy, India and Burma. On his travels he took an interest in natural history and collected numerous specimens. After military service he obtained a comparative anatomy position in the department of human anatomy at the London Hospital Medical College, followed by similar positions at Cambridge University and St. Mary's Hospital Medical School. In 1970 he became Professor of Vertebrate Anatomy in the University of London. Some of his major contributions to herpetology where on the function of

Jacobson's organ The vomeronasal organ (VNO), or Jacobson's organ, is the paired auxiliary olfactory (smell) sense organ located in the soft tissue of the nasal septum, in the nasal cavity just above the roof of the mouth (the hard palate) in various tetrapods. T ...

, the egg tooth of snakes, and the snout of the gharial. The fossil lizard '' Bellairsia'' is named after him.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bellairs, Angus 1918 births 1990 deaths 20th-century British zoologists British herpetologists British Army personnel of World War II Royal Army Medical Corps soldiers Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge People educated at Stowe School Alumni of University College London