Leslie Christidis (born 30 May 1959), also simply known as Les Christidis, is an Australian
ornithologist. His main research field is the evolution and systematics of birds. He has been director of Southern Cross University National Marine Science Centre since 2009. He was assistant director at Sydney's
Australian Museum
The Australian Museum is a heritage-listed museum at 1 William Street, Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia. It is the oldest museum in Australia,Design 5, 2016, p.1 and the fifth oldest natural history museum in the ...
from 2004 to 2009.
Leslie Christidis graduated as
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...
at the
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...
in 1980. In 1985 he required his
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
at the
Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies an ...
where he studied the evolutionary genetics of Australian finches.
During his research studies, where he first worked as a
CSIRO post-doctoral fellow and then as the recipient of Queen Elizabeth II fellowship, he demonstrated that 4500 species of the world's songbirds had its origin in Australia. Les Christidis was Senior Curator of Ornithology at the
Museum Victoria
Museums Victoria is an organisation which operates three major state-owned museums in Melbourne, Victoria: the Melbourne Museum, the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks Museum. It also manages the Royal Exhibition Building and a storage facili ...
from 1987 to 1996.
Les Christidis was author or co-author of over 100 scientific papers and books on the taxonomy and evolutionary genetics of birds, bats, marsupials, bryozoans and more recently on cultural
intangible heritage. Together with
Walter E. Boles he published ''The Taxonomy and Species of Birds of Australia and Its Territories'', with several revisions on Australasian birds including the family
Acanthizidae
The Acanthizidae—known as Australian warblers—are a family of passerine birds which includes gerygones, the thornbills ''Acanthiza'', and the scrubwrens of ''Sericornis''. The Acanthizidae family consists of small to medium passerine birds, ...
. Together with
Richard Schodde
Richard Schodde, OAM (born 23 September 1936) is an Australian botanist and ornithologist.
Schodde studied at the University of Adelaide, where he received a BSc (Hons) in 1960 and a PhD in 1970. During the 1960s he was a botanist with the CSI ...
he described ''Amytornis barbatus diamantina'', a subspecies of the
grey grasswren, in 1987. He further described two subfamilies,
Amalocichlinae and
Pachycephalopsinae, and a genus, ''
Cryptomicroeca'' in 2012.
[Christidis, L.; Irestedt, M.; Rowe, D.; Boles, W. E.; Norman, J. A.: ''Circumscription, diagnosis and description of two subfamilies and one genus of Australo-Papuan robins (Aves: Passeriformes: Petroicidae)''. ]Zootaxa
''Zootaxa'' is a peer-reviewed scientific mega journal for animal taxonomists. It is published by Magnolia Press (Auckland, New Zealand). The journal was established by Zhi-Qiang Zhang in 2001 and new issues are published multiple times a week ...
3560: 87–88
He was awarded with the
W. Roy Wheeler Medallion in 2005.
Selected works
*Les Christidis, Walter Boles: ''The Taxonomy and Species of Birds of Australia and Its Territories''. ''Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union'', 1994.
*Les Christidis, Walter Boles: ''Systematics and Taxonomy of Australian Birds''. CSIRO Publishing. 2008.
References
External links
Australian Bird List(compiled on basis of ''The Taxonomy and Species of Birds of Australia and its Territories'' by Boles/Christidis (1994))
1959 births
Australian ornithologists
Australian curators
University of Melbourne alumni
Australian National University alumni
Living people
{{Australia-scientist-stub