What do you get if you put Aberdeen, the British Science
Festival, and dwarf elephants together? Isn’t it obvious? Hugh
Falconer. What do you mean you’ve never heard of Hugh Falconer?
The man who was instrumental in introducing tea plantations to
India? The man who, in 1842, brought back five tons of fossil
bones to the UK from Pakistan and India, fossils which would
eventually form a core part of the Natural History Museum’s
collections? The man who Stephen J. Gould claimed was the first
scientist to anticipate the evolutionary theory of punctuated
equilibrium? Not ringing any bells? Poor Hugh Falconer – one of
the most respected scientists of his day, but now he is largely
forgotten." Well this year, at the British Science Festival in
Aberdeen, it is time to remember him. Not only did Falconer
began his academic career studying Natural History at the
University of Aberdeen (class of 1826), but this year is also
the 150th anniversary of the first-ever scientific description
of a species of dwarf elephant. Gu