Ronald Pearson Tripp

Ronald Pearson Tripp (1914–2001) was a British paleontologist specializing in trilobites. Born in England in 1914, Tripp was self-taught in paleontology, but became an authority on the taxonomy of the trilobite families Encrinuridae, Lichidae, and Lichakephalidae – the latter of which he named. He wrote the section on the superfamily Lichacea for the monumental Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, which was published in 1959, and wrote numerous articles and monographs pertaining to those families, as well as publications on entire trilobite faunas. As a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Treasurer of the Palaeontological Association, and Associate of the Natural History Museum, he established many new species and higher taxa of trilobites, particularly from the Ordovician rocks of the United Kingdom, before expanding his research globally. His wife, Doris, died in 1980, and he later married Phyllis Forrest and moved to Toronto, where he continued his trilobite research as Associate of the Royal Ontario Museum, after having become legally blind. Tripp died in Toronto, in 2001. Phyllis died suddenly two months later.