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Founded in 1930, the Harrison Institute is a UK charity that specialises in mammal taxonomy and biodiversity studies in the Old World tropics and subtropics, especially southern and southeast Asia, Arabia and eastern Africa.
The Harrison Institute seeks to promote and facilitate biodiversity conservation through:
The Harrison Institute provides training for counterparts from a range of Eurasian and African countries. Capacity building and skills development are offered in a series of subjects including project design, field survey techniques, analysing data, preparing scientific reports and publications and the conservation and management of zoological collections.
The Harrison Institute is home to over 50,000 scientific specimens. Its collection includes 33,000 recent and fossil mammals and 19,000 birds. The fossil mammal collection is growing rapidly and contains holdings of national and international importance. These include Quaternary faunas from the UK and Poland and Tertiary faunas from the UK. The Recent bird collection is the oldest collection in the Institute with some specimens prepared in the first half of the 19th century. The collection was obtained by James and Jeffery Harrison and is focused on the Palaearctic region, with an emphasis on wildfowl. It includes the Ticehurst and Billy Paine collections and some of the Hastings Rarities. The institute's collection of 19,000 birds, representing 884 species, was donated to the Vienna Natural History Museum in 2022 for the purposes of scientific research. [1]
In the last 50 years the Harrison Institute has organised or participated in over 75 field surveys and expeditions to 36 countries in 5 continents. Each has been concerned with an aspect of natural history and was part of a wider programme of conservation or wildlife studies involving scientific institutions from the host country.
The Harrison Institute was founded by James Harrison in 1930. Based at Bowerwood House in Sevenoaks, some 40 km from central London, the Institute originally focused on the study of British and Palaearctic birds. In 1971, its zoological collections were recognised as being of national and international importance and it became a charitable trust (No 268830). In 1986, it was further recognised as a Registered Scientific Institution by the then Department of the Environment (now the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), a UK Government Department and was listed under CITES.
Under the leadership of David Harrison (James's younger son), the Institute increasingly focused on the study and conservation of mammals. Conservation initiatives were concentrated in Arabia and scientific publications were primarily concerned with the Old World tropics and subtropics. More recently, the Institute has been involved in research, training and scientific expeditions to East Africa, the Indian Subcontinent and South-East Asia. It also researches the Tertiary and Quaternary UK mammal faunas.
The Cenozoic is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66 million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configuration of continents. It is the latest of three geological eras since complex life evolved, preceded by the Mesozoic and Paleozoic. It started with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, when many species, including the non-avian dinosaurs, became extinct in an event attributed by most experts to the impact of a large asteroid or other celestial body, the Chicxulub impactor.
The Neogene, informally Upper Tertiary or Late Tertiary, is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period 23.03 million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period 2.58 Mya. The Neogene is sub-divided into two epochs, the earlier Miocene and the later Pliocene. Some geologists assert that the Neogene cannot be clearly delineated from the modern geological period, the Quaternary. The term "Neogene" was coined in 1853 by the Austrian palaeontologist Moritz Hörnes (1815–1868).
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa.
The Indomalayan realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms. It extends across most of South and Southeast Asia and into the southern parts of East Asia.
Sundaland is a biogeographical region of South-eastern Asia corresponding to a larger landmass that was exposed throughout the last 2.6 million years during periods when sea levels were lower. It includes Borneo, Java, and Sumatra in Indonesia, and their surrounding small islands, as well as the Malay Peninsula on the Asian mainland.
Biodiversity in Israel and Palestine is about the fauna and flora in the geographical region of Israel and of the State of Palestine. This geographical area within the historical region of Palestine extends from the Jordan River and Wadi Araba in the east, to the Mediterranean Sea and the Sinai desert in the west, to Lebanon in the north, and to the gulf of Aqaba, or Eilat in the south.
The fauna of Puerto Rico is similar to other island archipelago faunas, with high endemism, and low, skewed taxonomic diversity. Bats are the only extant native terrestrial mammals in Puerto Rico. All other terrestrial mammals in the area were introduced by humans, and include species such as cats, goats, sheep, the small Indian mongoose, and escaped monkeys. Marine mammals include dolphins, manatees, and whales. Of the 349 bird species, about 120 breed in the archipelago, and 47.5% are accidental or rare.
The wildlife of Jordan includes its flora and fauna and their natural habitats. Although much of the country is desert, it has several geographic regions, each with a diversity of plants and animals adapted to their own particular habitats. Fossil finds show that in Palaeolithic times, the region had Syrian brown bears, Asiatic lions, zebras, Asian elephants, and rhinoceroses, but these species are all now extinct in this region.
Natural History Museum is a museum located in Belgrade, Serbia. It is one of the oldest specialized national institutions in Serbia. In fact, it is the only museum of this type in Serbia.
All of the animals living in Asia and its surrounding seas and islands are considered the fauna of Asia. Since there is no natural biogeographic boundary in the west between Europe and Asia. The term "fauna of Asia" is somewhat elusive. Temperate Asia is the eastern part of the Palearctic realm, and its south-eastern part belongs to the Indomalayan realm. Asia shows a notable diversity of habitats, with significant variations in rainfall, altitude, topography, temperature and geological history, which is reflected in its richness and diversity of animal life.
Tropical ecology is the study of the relationships between the biotic and abiotic components of the tropics, or the area of the Earth that lies between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. The tropical climate experiences hot, humid weather and rainfall year-round. While many might associate the region solely with the rainforests, the tropics are home to a wide variety of ecosystems that boast a great wealth of biodiversity, from exotic animal species to seldom-found flora. Tropical ecology began with the work of early English naturalists and eventually saw the establishment of research stations throughout the tropics devoted to exploring and documenting these exotic landscapes. The burgeoning ecological study of the tropics has led to increased conservation education and programs devoted to the climate.
Derek William Yalden was an eminent British zoologist and academic. He was an Honorary Reader at the University of Manchester.
The fauna of England is similar to that of other areas British Isles and lies within the Palearctic realm. England's fauna is mainly made up of small animals and is notable for having few large mammals, but in similarity with other island nations; many bird species.
Elaine Anderson was an American paleontologist. She is best known for her work on vertebrate paleontology.
Abbey Wood is a 6.3-hectare (16-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Abbey Wood in the London Borough of Bexley. It is located in Lesnes Abbey Woods south-east of the ruins of Lesnes Abbey. Members of the public can dig for fossils in a small area designated as the Fossil Bed with the permission of the Lesnes Abbey ranger.
Don Ellis Wilson is an American zoologist. His main research field is mammalogy, especially the group of bats which he studied in 65 countries around the world.
Lindy Lumsden is a principal research scientist with the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, at the Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research, in Melbourne, Australia.
The wildlife of Yemen is substantial and varied. Yemen is a large country in the southern half of the Arabian Peninsula with several geographic regions, each with a diversity of plants and animals adapted to their own particular habitats. As well as high mountains and deserts, there is a coastal plain and long coastline. The country has links with Europe and Asia, and the continent of Africa is close at hand. The flora and fauna have influences from all these regions and the country also serves as a staging post for migratory birds.
The wildlife of the United Arab Emirates is the flora and fauna of the country on the eastern side of the Arabian Peninsula and the southern end of the Persian Gulf. The country offers a variety of habitats for wildlife including the coast, offshore islands, mangrove areas, mudflats, salt pans, sand and gravel plains, sand dunes, mountain slopes, wadis and rocky summits. Because the terrain is so varied, it supports a greater number of species of plants and animals than might have been expected in this relatively small country.
Stour Estuary is a 2,523 hectare biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest which stretches from Manningtree to Harwich in Essex and Suffolk. It is also an internationally important wetland Ramsar site, a Special Protection Area and a Nature Conservation Review site. It is part of the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and there are Geological Conservation Review sites in Wrabness, Stutton, and Harwich Part of the site is managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and a small area is Wrabness Nature Reserve, a Local Nature Reserve managed by the Essex Wildlife Trust.