Pethiyagoda wins Linnean medal for Zoology 2022

By Ifham Nizam

Dr. Rohan Pethiyagoda, Sri Lanka’s foremost biodiversity expert will on May 24 be conferred the Linnean Medal for Zoology 2022 by the Linnean Society of London.

“I have no idea who nominated me or why I was selected. It was a complete surprise. But I feel very honoured to be the first Sri Lankan to receive this medal, which has been awarded for about the last 140 years and which so many scientists much more distinguished than I have received in the past.”

Dr. Pethiyagoda has served the Sri Lanka government as Chairman of the Water Board in the 1980s and also as an advisor.

His monumental Freshwater Fishes of Sri Lanka (1991) was hailed as a landmark achievement dealing with the island’s diverse ichthyofauna more comprehensively and authoritatively than ever before.

Over the next decade both Pethiyagoda and his Wildlife Heritage Trust (WHT), set up with the profits from the book, became synonymous with the exploration, discovery and documentation of Sri Lanka’s biodiversity and the wider application of this to enhance biogeography of the broader region.

The Linnean Medal was instituted in May 1888 in connection with the Centenary of the Society that year. The medal was in gold up to 1976 and was sometimes was referred to as the Linnean Gold Medal. Since 1976 the medal has been made of an alloy and is different from the Linnean Gold Medal.