Professor Timothy Richard Halliday was a British herpetologist and artist. He was born on 11 September 1945 in Marlborough, Wiltshire, to Edna (née Barlow), was a housemistress at

Marlborough College Marlborough College is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English Independent school (United Kingdom), independent boarding school) for pupils aged 13 to 18 in Marlborough, Wiltshire, England. Founded in 1843 for the sons of Church ...

and her husband, Jack Halliday, a biology teacher there. He was educated at Marlborough College, then studied zoology at Oxford University, where is doctoral thesis was on the sexual behaviour of newts. He joined the Open University in 1977, as a lecturer in biology, and by his retirement in 2009 was a Professor of Biology. He played a key role in organising the 1989 'First World Congress of Herpetology' at the University of Kent, and was instrumental in the creation of the Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force, and served as its international director from 1994 to 2006. He also helped to establish the TRITURUS network of newt researchers. Between 1990 and 1998 he seat on the council of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), as well as chairing its conservation committee. He was also an advisor for David Attenborough's programmes ''

Life on Earth Life on Earth may refer to: Science * Life * Earliest known life forms * Evolutionary history of life ** Abiogenesis Film and television * ''Life on Earth'' (film) (''La Vie Sur Terre''), a 1998 Malian film * ''Life on Earth'' (TV series), a 197 ...

'' and '' Life in Cold Blood''. As an artist, Halliday specialised in painting birds, frogs and toads. He married Carolyn Wheeler (who had been the first female pupil at Marlborough College) in 1970. They first met at nursery school. She also studied zoology at Oxford. They lived in Oxford and had three children and two grandchildren. All survive him. He died on 10 April 2019, after being diagnosed with an rare and incurable form of T-cell lymphoma in 2016. The species '' Pseudophilautus hallidayi'', Halliday's shrub frog, is named in his honour. The

Amphibian Survival Alliance 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 IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group dedicated a special issue of their journal ''FrogLog'' to Halliday in November 2018. An ZSL symposium on amphibian diseases held in late April 2019 was also dedicated to Halliday.

Publications

* O'Shea M, Halliday T. 2002. ''Smithsonian Handbooks: Reptiles and Amphibians''. London: DK Publishing. 256 pp. . *

References

External links

*
Open University profile

Images of Halliday
at the Royal Society {{DEFAULTSORT:Halliday, Tim 1945 births 2019 deaths British herpetologists People from Marlborough, Wiltshire Alumni of the University of Oxford Deaths from non-Hodgkin lymphoma 21st-century British painters People educated at Marlborough College Academics of the Open University British bird artists