A Tribute to Jonathan Kingdon: ‘Thinking Mammals’: Kingdon'S Research on Mammals in Our Mother Continent

Abstract

Jonathan Kingdon, born in Tanzania in 1935 of English parents (his mother was a professional artist and teacher, and his father was then serving the British protectorate as a District Commissioner), is one of the foremost authorities on the study of the diversity and evolution of African mammals. He is also an extraordinary artist, most known for his illustrations of animals that have been placed firmly within the tradition of anatomical drawing finding its origins in Leonardo da Vinci. I have had the privilege of working with Jonathan over the past decade, and I am honoured to offer a tribute to his unparalleled work. I will primarily focus on Kingdon as an extraordinary scientist and illustrator of African mammals, the reach of his message as a source of inspiration and learning for generations, and his ultimate and pervasive call for the wisdom of modern societies to protect and maintain such incredible diversity of species against the alarming risk of extinction. He often brings up a very compelling and yet philosophical reason for this call, among the several others that would be equally well justified: “We became human in a very specific setting—within rich communities of African animals and plants. To destroy these communities is to detach ourselves, irrevocably, from our biological, even our intellectual past. To drift, senseless of our origins, is to impoverish science and medicine, to mythologise and trivialise our culture and to diminish us as descendants of countless generations of intelligent African mammals.” 2 The essence and significance of Kingdon’s work as a zoologist and evolutionary biologist stands, in my view, on two complementary sides of his investigation: the unprecedented production of a progressively augmented portrait of the diversity of African mammals, where each of the over 1100 species finds a space in the grand scheme, and the theoretical, synthetic research into the patterns of evolution of this extraordinary diversity that happened uniquely in Africa. This blend of scientific production, and its diffusion to the general public through several books, among which are the beautifully illustrated field guides to African mammals, is indeed without peer. It first entered the public domain with the seven volumes