By the 1990s, four decades into his work, Sir David’s influence had become a cornerstone of the scientific community.
“I go around to zoology departments and universities round the world and professors come up and say ‘The reason I’ve got this professorship was that I saw Life on Earth'”, he recalled.
More than 50 species – ranging from frogs and beetles to a carnivorous plant and a tropical butterfly – now bear his name in their official scientific classification.
These honours include a fossilised ‘odd bird’ from China and, most recently, a fungus named after him in 2025.
The first species to bear his name was identified in 1993: a marine reptile fossil discovered along England’s Jurassic Coast.