List of biologists
This is a list of notable biologists with a biography in Wikipedia. It includes zoologists, botanists, ornithologists, entomologists, malacologists, naturalists and other specialities.
A
- Erik Acharius (1757–1819), Swedish botanist who studied lichens
- Arthur Adams (1820–1878), English physician and naturalist who classified crustaceans and molluscs
- Michel Adanson (1727–1806), French naturalist (abbr. in botany: Adans.) who studied the plants and animals of Senegal
- Monique Adolphe (born 1932), French cell biologist, pioneer of cell culture
- Edgar Douglas Adrian (1st Baron Adrian) (1889–1977), British electrophysiologist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1932) for research on neurons
- Adam Afzelius (1750–1837), Swedish botanist who collected botanical specimens later acquired by Uppsala University
- Carl Adolph Agardh (1785–1859), Swedish botanist who classified plant orders and classes
- Jacob Georg Agardh (1813–1901), Swedish botanist known for classification of algae
- Louis Agassiz (1807–1873), Swiss zoologist who studied the classification of fish; opponent of natural selection
- Alexander Agassiz (1835–1910), American zoologist, son of Louis Agassiz, expert of marine biology (and on mining)
- Nikolaus Ager (also Nicolas Ager, Agerius) (1568–1634), French botanist, author of De Anima Vegetativa
- William Aiton (1731–1793), Scottish botanist (abbr. in botany: Aiton), director of the botanical garden at Kew
- Bruce Alberts (born 1938), American biochemist, former President of the United States National Academy of Sciences, known for studying the protein complexes involved in chromosome replication, and for the book Molecular Biology of the Cell
- Nora Lilian Alcock (1874–1972), British pioneer in plant pathology who did research on fungal diseases
- Boyd Alexander (1873–1910), English ornithologist who made surveys of birds in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), and the Bonin Islands
- Richard D. Alexander (1929–2018), American evolutionary biologist whose scientific pursuits integrated systematics, ecology, evolution, natural history and behaviour.
- Alfred William Alcock (1859–1933), British systematist of numerous species, aspects of biology and physiology of fishes
- Salim Ali (1896–1987), Indian ornithologist who conducted systematic bird surveys across India
- Frédéric-Louis Allamand (1736–1809), Swiss botanist who described several plant genera (abbr. in botany: F.Allam.)
- Warder Clyde Allee (1885–1955), American zoologist and ecologist, identified the Allee effect (correlation between population density and individual fitness)
- Joel Asaph Allen (1838–1921), American zoologist who studied birds and mammals, known for Allen's rule
- George James Allman (1812–1898), British naturalist who did important work on the gymnoblasts
- June Dalziel Almeida (1930–2007), Scottish virologist who pioneered techniques for chacterizing viruses, and discovered Coronavirus
- Tikvah Alper (1909–1995), South African radiobiologist, but outspoken opponent of Apartheid, who showed that the infectious agent of scrapie contains no nucleic acid
- Prospero Alpini (1553–1617), Italian botanist, the first in Europe to describe coffee and banana plants
- Sidney Altman (born 1939), Canadian-born molecular biologist, winner of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on RNA
- Bruce Ames (born 1928), American biochemist, inventor of the Ames test for mutagenicity (sometimes regarded as a test for carcinogenicity)
- José Alberto de Oliveira Anchieta (1832–1897), Portuguese naturalist who identified many new species of mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles
- Jakob Johan Adolf Appellöf (1857–1921), Swedish marine zoologist who made important contributions to knowledge of cephalopods
- Agnes Robertson Arber (1879–1960), British plant morphologist and anatomist, historian of botany and philosopher of biology
- Aristotle (384 BC–322 BC), Greek philosopher, sometimes regarded as the first biologist, he described hundreds of kinds of animal
- Emily Arnesen (1867–1928), Norwegian zoologist who worked on sponges
- Ruth Arnon (born 1933), Israeli biochemist, who works on anti-cancer and influenza vaccinations. She participated in developng the multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone.
- Peter Artedi (1705–1735), Swedish naturalist who developed the science of ichthyology.
- Gilbert Ashwell (1916–2014), American biochemist, pioneer in the study of cell receptor
- Ana Aslan (1897–1988), Romanian biologist who studied arthritis and other aspects of aging
- David Attenborough (born 1926), British natural history broadcaster
- Jean Baptiste Audebert (1759–1800), French naturalist. Primarily an artist, he illustrated books of natural history, including Histoire naturelle des singes, des makis [lemurs] et des galéopithèques
- Jean Victoire Audouin (1797–1841), French zoologist: entomologist, herpetologist, ornithologist and malacologist
- John James Audubon (1786–1851), French and American ornithologist and illustrator, who identified 25 new species
- Charlotte Auerbach (1899–1994), German and British geneticist, founded the discipline of mutagenesis after discovering the effect of mustard gas on fruit flies
- Richard Axel (born 1946), American Nobel Prize–winning physiologist who discovered how to insert foreign DNA into a host cell
- Julius Axelrod (1912–2004), American biochemist, winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on catecholamine neurotransmitters
- William Orville Ayres (1817–1887), American physician and ichthyologist with publications in popular sources
- Félix de Azara (1746–1811), Spanish naturalist who described more than 350 South American birds
B
Ba-Bi
- Churchill Babington (1821–1889), British classical scholar, archaeologist and botanist
- John Bachman (1790–1874), American ornithologist; also one of the first scientists to argue that blacks and whites are the same species
- Curt Backeberg (1894–1966), German horticulturist, known for classification of cacti. (abbr. in botany: Backeb.)
- Karl Ernst von Baer (1792–1876), German naturalist (in Estonia), biologist, geologist, meteorologist, geographer, and a founding father of embryology
- Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858–1954), American botanist (abbr. in botany: L.H.Bailey), one of the first to recognize the importance of Gregor Mendel's work
- Donna Baird, American epidemiologist and evolutionary-population biologist, concerned with women's health
- Spencer Fullerton Baird (1823–1887), American naturalist, ornithologist, ichthyologist and herpetologist who collected and classified many species
- Scott Baker (born 1954), American marine biologist, cetacean expert
- John Hutton Balfour (1808–1884), Scottish botanist (abbr. in botany: Balf.), Author of numerous books, including Manual of Botany
- David Baltimore (born 1938), American biologist, known for work on viruses. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1975
- Outram Bangs (1863–1932), American zoologist who collected many bird species; author of more than 70 books and articles, 55 of them on mammals
- Joseph Banks (1743–1820), English naturalist, botanist (abbr. in botany: Banks). He collected 30,000 plant specimens and discovered 1,400.
- Robert Bárány (1876–1936), Austro-Hungarian (later Swedish) physician. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1914) for studies of the vestibular system
- Ben Barres (1954–2017), American neurobiologist who studied mammalian glial cells of the central nervous system
- Benjamin Smith Barton (1766–1815), American botanist (abbr. in botany: Barton), author of Elements of botany, or Outlines of the natural history of vegetables, the first American textbook of botany
- John Bartram (1699–1777), American botanist (abbr. in botany: Bartram), described by Carl Linnaeus as the "greatest natural botanist in the world."
- William Bartram (1739–1823), American botanist, ornithologist, natural historian, and explorer (abbr. in botany: W.Bartram), author of Bartram's Travels (as now known)
- Anton de Bary (1831–1888), German surgeon, botanist, microbiologist, and mycologist, considered a founding father of plant pathology (phytopathology) as well as the founder of modern mycology.
- Henry Walter Bates (1825–1892), English naturalist who gave the first scientific account of mimicry.
- Patrick Bateson (1938–2017), English biologist and science writer, President of the Zoological Society of London
- August Johann Georg Karl Batsch (1762–1802), German botanist, mycologist who discovered almost 200 species of mushrooms
- Gaspard Bauhin (1560–1624), Swiss botanist who introduced binomial nomenclature into taxonomy, foreshadowing Linnaeus (abbr. in botany: C.Bauhin)
- Johann Matthäus Bechstein (1757–1822), German naturalist, ornithologist, entomologist and herpetologist known for his treatise on singing birds Naturgeschichte der Stubenvögel. (abbr. in botany: Bechst.)
- Rollo Beck (1870–1950), American ornithologist known for collecting birds and reptiles, including three of the last four individuals of the Pinta Island tortoise
- Charles William Beebe (1877–1962), American biologist, known for work on pheasants, and numerous books on natural history
- Martinus Beijerinck (1851–1931), Dutch microbiologist and botanist who discovered viruses and investigated nitrogen fixation by bacteria
- Thomas Bell (1792–1880), English zoologist, surgeon and writer who described and classified Darwin's reptile specimens and crustaceans
- David Bellamy (1933–2019), English broadcaster, activist and ecologist
- Edward Turner Bennett (1797–1836), English zoologist who described a new species of African crocodile
- George Bentham (1800–1884), English botanist (abbr. in botany: Benth.), known for his taxonomy of plants, written with Joseph Dalton Hooker, Genera Plantarum
- Robert Bentley (1821–1893), English botanist (abbr. in botany: Bentley), known for Medicinal Plants (four volumes)
- Jacques Benveniste (1935–2004), French immunologist, proponent of "water memory" as the basis of homeopathy.
- Wilson Teixeira Beraldo (1917–1998), Brazilian physician and physiologist, codiscoverer of bradykinin
- Hans Berger (1873–1941), German neuroscientist, one of the founders of electroencephalography
- Carl Bergmann (1814–1865), German anatomist, physiologist and biologist who developed Bergmann's rule relating population and body sizes with ambient temperature
- Rudolph Bergh (1824–1909), Danish physician and zoologist who studied sexually transmitted diseases, and also molluscs
- Claude Bernard (1813–1878), French physiologist, father of the concepts of the milieu intérieur and homeostasis
- Samuel Stillman Berry (1887–1984), American zoologist who established 401 mollusc taxa, and worked on chitons, cephalopods, and also land snails.
- Thomas Bewick (1753–1828), English ornithologist and illustrator, author of A General History of Quadrupeds
- Gabriel Bibron (1806–1848), French zoologist, expert on reptiles and author (with André Marie Constant Duméril) of Erpétologie Générale
- Ann Bishop (1899–1990), English biologist who specialized in protozoology and parasitology
- Biswamoy Biswas (1923–1994), Indian ornithologist who studied, in particular, the birds of Nepal and Bhutan
Bl-Bu
- Elizabeth Blackburn (born 1948), Australian/US Nobel Prize–winning researcher in the field of telomeres and the "telomerase" enzyme
- John Blackwall (1790–1881), British entomologist, author of A History of the Spiders of Great Britain and Ireland
- Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville (1777–1850), French zoologist, taxonomic authority on numerous zoological species, including Blainville's beaked whale
- Albert Francis Blakeslee (1874–1954), American botanist, best known for research on Jimsonweed and the sexuality of fungi
- Thomas Blakiston (1832–1891), English naturalist. "Blakiston's Line" separates animal species of Hokkaidō and northern Asia, from those of Honshū and southern Asia.
- William Thomas Blanford (1832–1905), English geologist and naturalist, editor of The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma.
- Pieter Bleeker (1819–1878), Dutch ichthyologist whose papers described 511 new genera and 1,925 new species.
- Günter Blobel (1936–2018), German Nobel Prize-winning biologist who discovered that newly synthesized proteins contain "address tags" which direct them to the proper location within the cell.
- Steven Block (born 1952), American biophysicist who measured the mechanical properties of single bio-molecules
- Carl Ludwig Blume (Karel Lodewijk Blume, 1789–1862), German-Dutch botanist (abbr. in botany: Blume) who studied the flora of southern Asia, particularly Java
- Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840), German physiologist and anthropologist who classified human races on the basis of skull structure
- Edward Blyth (1810–1873), English zoologist who classified many birds of India
- José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage (1823–1907), Portuguese zoologist with many papers on mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and others
- Pieter Boddaert (1730–1795/1796), Dutch physician and naturalist who named many mammals, birds and other animals
- Brendan J. M. Bohannan, American microbial and evolutionary biologist, expert on the microbes of Amazonia
- Charles Lucien Bonaparte (1803–1857), French naturalist who coined Latin names for many bird species.
- James Bond (1900–1989), American ornithologist, author of Birds of the West Indies
- Franco Andrea Bonelli (1784–1830), Italian ornithologist, author of a Catalogue of the Birds of Piedmont, which described 262 species.
- August Gustav Heinrich von Bongard (1786–1839), German botanist in St Petersburg, one the first botanists to describe the plants of Alaska
- John Tyler Bonner (1920–2019), American developmental biologist, expert on slime moulds
- Charles Bonnet (1720–1793), Genevan naturalist who published work on many subjects, including insects and plants
- Aimé Bonpland (1773–1858), French explorer and botanist (abbr. in botany: Bonpl.) who collected and classified about 6,000 plants unknown in Europe
- Jules Bordet (1870–1961), Belgian immunologist and microbiologist, winner of the 1919 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the complement system in the immune system
- Antonina Georgievna Borissova (1903–1970), Russian botanist who specialized on the flora of the deserts and semi-desert of central Asia.
- Norman Borlaug (1914–2009), American agricultural scientist, humanitarian, Nobel Peace Prize, and the father of the Green Revolution
- Louis Augustin Guillaume Bosc (1759–1828), French botanist, invertebrate zoologist, and entomologist, who made a systematic examination of the mushrooms of the southern United States
- George Albert Boulenger (1858–1937), Belgian and British zoologist, author of 19 monographs on fishes, amphibians, and reptiles
- Jules Bourcier (1797–1873), French ornithologist, expert on hummingbirds
- Margaret Bradshaw (born 1941), New Zealand Antarctic researcher who has worked on Devonian invertebrate palaeontology
- Johann Friedrich von Brandt (1802–1879), German-Russian naturalist (abbr. in botany: Brandt) who described various birds; also an entomologist, specialising in beetles and millipedes.
- Sara Branham Matthews (1888–1962), American microbiologist and physician best known for her research into the isolation and treatment of Neisseria meningitidis
- Christian Ludwig Brehm (1787–1864), German ornithologist who described many German species of birds
- Alfred Brehm (1829–1884), German zoologist, author of many works on animals and especially birds
- Sydney Brenner (1927–2019), British molecular biologist who worked on the genetic code, and later established the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans as a model organism for developmental biology. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2002)
- Thomas Mayo Brewer (1814–1880), American naturalist, specializing in ornithology and oology (the study of birds' eggs).
- William Brewster (1851–1919), American ornithologist, curator of mammals and birds at Harvard.
- Mathurin Jacques Brisson (1723–1806), French zoologist, author of Le Règne animal and Ornithologie.
- Nathaniel Lord Britton (1859–1934), American botanist (abbr. in botany: Britton), coauthor of Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada, and the British Possessions.
- Thomas D. Brock (born 1926), American microbiologist who discovered of hyperthermophiles such as Thermus aquaticus.
- Adolphe Theodore Brongniart (1801–1876), French botanist (abbr. in botany: Brongn.), author of many works, including Histoire des végétaux fossiles.
- Robert Broom (1866–1951), South African paleontologist, author many many papers and books, including The mammal-like reptiles of South Africa and the origin of mammals.
- James H. Brown (born 1942), American ecologist known for his metabolic theory of ecology
- Robert Brown (1773–1858), botanist (abbr. in botany: R.Br.) known for pioneering use of the microscope in botany.
- David Bruce (1855–1931), Scottish pathologist and microbiologist who investigated Malta fever (now called brucellosis) and discovered trypanosomes.
- Jean Guillaume Bruguière (1750–1798), French naturalist, mainly interested in molluscs and other invertebrates
- Morten Thrane Brünnich (1737–1827), Danish zoologist, author of Ornithologia Borealis and Ichthyologia Massiliensis.
- Francis Buchanan-Hamilton (1762–1829), Scottish zoologist and botanist who studied plants and fishes in India
- Linda B. Buck (born 1947), American physiologist noted for work on the olfactory system. Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2004).
- Buffon (Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, 1707–1788), French naturalist (abbr. in botany: Buffon). Author of many works in evolution, including Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière.
- Walter Buller (1838–1906), New Zealand naturalist, a dominant figure in New Zealand ornithology. Author of A History of the Birds of New Zealand.
- Alexander G. von Bunge (1803–1890), German-Russian botanist who studied Mongolian flora.
- Luther Burbank (1849–1926), American horticulturalist who developed more than 800 strains and varieties of plants, many of commercial importance.
- Hermann Burmeister (1807–1892), German Argentinian zoologist, entomologist, herpetologist, and botanist, who described many new species of amphibians and reptiles.
- Carolyn Burns (born 1942), New Zealand ecologist who studies the physiology and population dynamics of southern hemisphere zooplankton and food-web interactions
- Carlos Bustamante (born 1951), Peruvian-American biophysicist who uses "molecular tweezers" to manipulate DNA for biochemical experiments
- Ernesto Bustamante (born 1950), Peruvian biochemist, specialist in mitochondria demonstrated the importance of mitochondrial hexokinase in glycolysis in rapidly growing malignant tumour cells. He currently works on DNA paternity testing.
C
- Jean Cabanis (1816–1906), German ornithologist, founder of the Journal für Ornithologie.
- Ángel Cabrera (1879–1960), Spanish zoologist, author of South American Mammals.
- George Caley (1770–1829), Explorer and botanist, discoverer of Mount Banks, Australia
- Rudolf Jakob Camerarius (1665–1721), German botanist, chiefly known for studies of reproductive in plants
- Frederick Campion Steward (1904–1993), British botanist, pioneer of plant tissue culture, genetic engineering and plant biotechnology
- Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778–1841), Swiss botanist who documented many plant families and created a new plant classification system.
- Philip Pearsall Carpenter (1819–1877), British conchologist, author of Catalogue of the collection of Mazatlan shells, in the British Museum: collected by Frederick Reigen.
- Alexis Carrel (1873–1944), French biologist and surgeon, winner of the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on sutures and organ transplants, advocate of eugenics.
- Elie-Abel Carrière (1818–1896), French botanist, an authority on conifers who described many new species.
- Clodoveo Carrión Mora (1883–1957), Ecuadorian paleontologist and naturalist who discovered many species and one genus.
- Sean B. Carroll (born 1960), American evolutionary development biologist, author of The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution and other books.
- Rachel Carson (1907–1964), American marine biologist, author of Silent Spring
- George Washington Carver (1860–1943), American agriculturist, author of bulletins on crop production, including How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it for Human Consumption.
- John Cassin (1813–1869), American ornithologist, who named many birds not described in the works of his predecessors.
- Alexandre de Cassini (1781–1832), French botanist (abbr. in botany: Cass.),who named many flowering plants and new genera in the sunflower family, many of them from North America.
- Amy Castle (1880–1971), New Zealand entomologist, who worked primarily on the Lepidoptera.
- William E. Castle (1867–1962), American geneticist who contributed to the mathematical foundations of Mendelian genetics, and anticipated what is now known as the Hardy–Weinberg law.
- Mark Catesby (1683–1749), English naturalist who studied flora and fauna in the New World. Author of Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands.
- Andrea Cesalpino (1519–1603), Italian botanist who classified plants according to their fruits and seeds, rather than alphabetically or by medicinal properties.
- Francesco Cetti (1726–1778), Italian zoologist, author of Storia Naturale di Sardegna (Natural History of Sardinia).
- Carlos Chagas (1879–1934), Brazilian physician who identified Trypanosoma cruzi as cause of Chagas disease
- Adelbert von Chamisso (Louis Charles Adélaïde de Chamissot, 1781–1838), German botanist, whose most important contribution was the description of many Mexican trees.
- Min Chueh Chang (1908–1991), Chinese-American reproductive biologist who studied the fertilisation process in mammalian reproduction, with work that led to the first test tube baby.
- Frank Michler Chapman (1864–1945), American ornithologist, who promoted the use of photography in ornithology, especially in his book Bird Studies With a Camera.
- Martha Chase (1927–2003), American biologist who carried out the Hershey–Chase experiment, which showed that genetic information is held and transmitted by DNA, not by protein.
- Thomas Frederic Cheeseman (1846–1923), New Zealand botanist and naturalist with wide-ranging interests, including sea slugs.
- Sergei Chetverikov (1880–1959), Russian population geneticist who showed how early genetic theories applied to natural populations, and thus contributed towards the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory.
- Charles Chilton (1860–1929), New Zealand zoologist with 130 papers on crustaceans, mostly amphipods, isopods and decapods, from all around the world, but especially from New Zealand.
- Carl Chun (1852–1914), German marine biologist specializing in cephalopods and plankton. He discovered and named the vampire squid.
- Nathan Cobb (1859–1932), American biologist who described over 1000 different nematode species and laid the foundations of nematode taxonomy.
- Leonard Cockayne (1855–1934), New Zealand botanist especially active in plant ecology and theories of hybridisation
- Alfred Cogniaux (1841–1916), Belgian botanist (abbr. in botany: Cogn.) who worked especially with orchids.
- Stanley Cohen (1922–2020), American biochemist, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1986) for his discovery of growth factors.
- James J. Collins (born 1965), American biologist, synthetic biology and systems biology pioneer
- Timothy Abbott Conrad (1803–1877), American paleontologist and naturalist who studied the shells of the Tertiary and Cretaceous formations, as well as existing species of molluscs.
- James Graham Cooper (1830–1902), American surgeon and naturalist who contributed to both zoology and botany.
- Edward Drinker Cope (1840–1897), American paleontologist and comparative anatomist, also a herpetologist and ichthyologist, and founder of the Neo-Lamarckism school of thought.
- Carl Ferdinand Cori (1896–1984), Czech-American biochemist and pharmacologist, 1947 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work on the Cori cycle.
- Gerty Cori (1886–1957), Czech-American biochemist, first American woman to win a Nobel Prize in science (Physiology or Medicine, 1947), for unraveling the mechanism of glycogen metabolism.
- Charles B. Cory (1857–1921), American ornithologist, who collected many birds. Author of The Birds of Haiti and San Domingo and other books.
- Emanuel Mendez da Costa (1717–1791), English botanist, naturalist, philosopher, author of A Natural History of Fossils, British Conchology, and other books.
- Elliott Coues (1842–1899), American army surgeon, historian, ornithologist, and author of Key to North American Birds, did much to promote the systematic study of ornithology.
- Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer (1907–2004), South African zoologist who discovered the Coelacanth.
- Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–1997), French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water.
- Miguel Rolando Covian (1913–1992), Argentine-Brazilian neurophysiologist known for research on the neurophysiology of the limbic system, regarded as the father of Brazilian neurophysiology
- Frederick Vernon Coville (1867–1937), American botanist, author of Botany of the Death Valley Expedition.
- Robert K. Crane, (1919–2010), American biochemist who discovered sodium-glucose cotransport
- Lucy Cranwell (1907–2000), New Zealand botanist who organized the Cheeseman herbarium of about 10,000 specimens in Auckland.
- Philipp Jakob Cretzschmar (1786–1845), German physician and zoologist (especially birds and mammals).
- Francis Crick (1916–2004), British molecular biologist, biophysicist and neuroscientist, best known for discovering the structure of DNA (with James Watson).
- Joseph Charles Hippolyte Crosse (1826–1898), French conchologist, expert on molluscs, co-editor of the Journal de Conchyliologie
- Nicholas Culpeper (1616–1654), English botanist, author of The English Physitian.
- Allan Cunningham (1791–1839), English botanist, "King's Collector for the Royal Garden at Kew" (in Australia).
- Gordon Herriot Cunningham (1892–1962), New Zealand mycologist who published extensively on the taxonomy of fungi
- Kathleen Curtis (1892–1993), New Zealand mycologist and plant pathologist, a founder of plant pathology in New Zealand
- William Curtis (1746–1799), English botanist, author of Flora Londinensis
- Georges Cuvier (1769–1832), French naturalist, author of Le Règne Animal (the Animal Kingdom), the "founding father of paleontology"
D
- Valerie Daggett, American bioengineer who simulates proteins and other biomolecules by molecular dynamics
- Anders Dahl (1751–1789), Swedish botanist whose name is recalled in the Dahlia, author of Observationes botanicae circa systema vegetabilium divi a Linne Gottingae 1784 editum, quibus accedit justae in manes Linneanos pietatis specimen
- William Healey Dall (1845–1927), malacologist, one of the earliest scientific explorers of interior Alaska. He described many mollusks of the Pacific Northwest of America
- Jivanayakam Cyril Daniel (1927–2011), Indian naturalist, director of the Bombay Natural History Society, author of The Book of Indian Reptiles
- Charles Darwin (1809–1882), British naturalist, author of The Origin of Species, in which he expounded the theory of natural selection, the starting point of modern evolutionary biology
- Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802), doctor, naturalist, founding member of the Lunar Society, grandfather of Charles Darwin.
- Charles Davenport (1866–1944), American biologist and eugenicist, founded the Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
- Armand David (Père David) (1826–1900), French zoologist and botanist, commissioned by the Jardin des Plantes to undertake scientific journeys through China
- Bernard Davis (1916–1994), American biologist who worked on microbial physiology and metabolism
- Richard Dawkins (born 1941), British evolutionary biologist and writer of popular science, author of The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion and other influential books.
- Pierre Antoine Delalande (1787–1823), French naturalist employed by the National Museum of Natural History to collect natural history specimens
- Max Delbrück (1906–1981), German-American physicist and biologist who demonstrated that natural selection acting on random mutations applied to bacteria, one of the creators of molecular biology
- Richard Dell (1920–2002), New Zealand malacologist, author of The Archibenthal Mollusca of New Zealand
- Stefano Delle Chiaje (1794–1860), Italian zoologist, botanist, anatomist and physician who worked on medicinal plants and on the taxonomy of invertebrates
- Paul Émile de Puydt (1810–1888), Belgian botanist, author of Les Orchidées, histoire iconographique ..., active in political philosophy as well as botany
- René Louiche Desfontaines (1750–1833), French botanist and ornithologist who collected many plants in Tunisia and Algeria
- Gérard Paul Deshayes (1795–1875), French geologist and conchologist, distinguished for research on mollusc fossils
- Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest (1784–1838), French zoologist, author of Histoire Naturelle des Tangaras, des Manakins et des Todiers (natural history of various birds)
- Ernst Dieffenbach (1811–1855), German naturalist, one of the first scientists to work in New Zealand
- Johann Jacob Dillenius (1684–1747), German botanist who worked in England on rare plants and mosses
- Lewis Weston Dillwyn (1778–1855), British botanist and conchologist, also active in porcelain manufacture and politics, author of The British Confervae, an illustrated study of British freshwater algae
- Joan Marjorie Dingley (1916–2008), New Zealand mycologist, world authority on fungi and New Zealand plant diseases
- Walter Dobrogosz (born 1933), American microbiologist, discoverer of Lactobacillus reuteri
- Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900–1975), American geneticist of Ukrainian origin, one of the leading evolutionary biologists of his time
- Rembert Dodoens (1517–1585), Flemish botanist who classified plants according to their properties and affinities (rather than listing them alphabetically)
- Anton Dohrn (1840–1909), German marine biologist, Darwinist, founder of the world's first zoological research station, in Naples
- David Don (1799–1841), British botanist who described major conifers discovered in his time, including the Coast Redwood.
- James Donn (1758–1813), English botanist, Curator of the Cambridge University Botanic Gardens, and author of Hortus Cantabrigiensis
- Jean Dorst (1924–2001), French ornithologist, authority on bird migration and one of the writers of Le Peuple Migrateur (Winged Migration)
- Henry Doubleday (1808–1875), British entomologist, author of the first catalogue of British butterflies and moths, Synonymic List of the British Lepidoptera
- David Douglas (1799–1834), Scottish botanist who studied conifers. The Douglas-fir is named after him.
- Patricia Louise Dudley (1929–2004) American zoologist who studied copepods (small crustaceans)
- Peter Duesberg (born 1936) German-American virologist who discovered the first retrovirus, and expert on genetic aspects of cancer, but his research contributions are overshadowed by his unpopular views on AIDS
- Félix Dujardin (1802–1860), French zoologist who studied protozoans, and also the structure of the insect brain
- Renato Dulbecco (1914–2012), Italian-American virologist awarded the Nobel Prize for work on oncoviruses
- Ronald Duman (1954–2020), American neuroscientist whose work in Biological psychiatry concerned the biological mechanisms behind antidepressants.
- André Marie Constant Duméril (1774–1860), French zoologist at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, who worked on herpetology and ichthyology.
- Charles Dumont de Sainte-Croix (1758–1830), French lawyer, but also an amateur ornithologist who described a number of Javanese bird species.
- Michel Felix Dunal (1789–1856), French botanist known for work on the genus Solanum
- Robin Dunbar (born 1947), British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist, a specialist in primate behaviour.
- Gerald Durrell (1925–1995), British naturalist, writer, zookeeper, conservationist, and television presenter, writer of popular books, such as My Family and Other Animals
E
- Sylvia Earle (born 1935), American oceanographer, author of Blue Hope: Exploring and Caring for Earth's Magnificent Ocean
- John Carew Eccles (1903–1997), Australian neurophysiologist and winner of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the synapse
- Christian Friedrich Ecklon (1795–1868), Danish botanical collector and apothecary
- Gerald Edelman (1929–2014), American immunologist (Nobel Prize)
- George Edwards (1693–1773), British naturalist and ornithologist
- Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (1795–1876), German zoologist, comparative anatomist, geologist, and microscopist
- Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915), German Nobel Prize-winning immunologist
- Karl Eichwald (1795–1876), Baltic German geologist, physician, and naturalist
- Theodor Eimer (1843–1898), German professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at Tübingen
- George Eliava (1892–1937), Georgian-Soviet microbiologist who worked with bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria)
- Daniel Giraud Elliot (1835–1915), American zoologist, founder of the American Ornithologist Union
- Günther Enderlein (1872–1968), German zoologist, entomologist, microbiologist, physician and manufacturer of pharmaceutical products
- Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher (1804–1849), Austrian botanist, numismatist and Sinologist, director of the Botanical Garden of Vienna
- Michael S. Engel (born 1971), American paleontologist and entomologist who works on insect evolutionary biology and classification
- George Engelmann (1809–1884), German-American botanist who described the flora of the west of North America, especially in the Rocky Mountains and northern Mexico
- Adolf Engler (1844–1930), German botanist who worked on plant taxonomy and phytogeography, author of Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien
- Johann Christian Polycarp Erxleben (1744–1777), German naturalist, author of Anfangsgründe der Naturlehre and Systema regni animalis, founder of the first academic veterinary school in Germany
- Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz (1793–1831), Baltic German biologist and explorer. The Latin name (Eschscholtzia californica) of the California poppy was given to commemorate him
- Constantin von Ettingshausen (1826–1897), Austrian botanist known for his palaeobotanical studies of flora from the Tertiary era.
- Warren Ewens (born 1937), Australian-American mathematical population geneticist working on the mathematical, statistical and theoretical aspects of population genetics
- Thomas Campbell Eyton (1809–1880), English naturalist who studied cattle, fishes and birds, author of History of the Rarer British Birds
F
- Jean Henri Fabre (1823–1915), French entomologist
- Johan Christian Fabricius (1745–1808), Danish entomologist
- David Fairchild (1869–1954), American botanist
- Hugh Falconer (1808–1865), Scottish paleontologist
- Filippo Farsetti (1703–1774), Venetian art collector and botanist
- Leonardo Fea (1852–1903), Italian zoologist
- Christoph Feldegg (1780–1845), Austrian naturalist
- Lewis J. Feldman (born 1945), American botanist
- Howard Barraclough (Barry) Fell (1917–1994), English zoologist and pre-Columbian contact theorist
- Sérgio Ferreira (1934–2016), Brazilian pharmacologist
- Harold John Finlay (1901–1951), New Zealand paleontologist and conchologist
- Otto Finsch (1839–1917), German naturalist
- Johann Fischer von Waldheim (1771–1853), German entomologist
- James Fisher (1922–1970), English ornithologist
- Paul Henri Fischer (1835–1893), French physician, zoologist, malacologist and paleontologist
- Ronald Fisher (1890–1962), British biologist and statistician, one of the founders of population genetics
- Leopold Fitzinger (1802–1884), Austrian zoologist
- Tim Flannery (born 1956) Australian biologist
- Jim Flegg, British ornithologist
- Alexander Fleming (1881–1955), British medical scientist
- Charles Fleming (1916–1987), New Zealand ornithologist, palaeontologist
- Walther Flemming (1843–1905), German physician and anatomist, discoverer of mitosis and chromosomes
- Thomas Bainbrigge Fletcher (1878–1950), English entomologist
- Howard Walter Florey (1898–1968), pharmacologist who was the co-inventor of penicillin
- Brian J. Ford (born 1939), British biologist and writer
- E. B. Ford (1901–1988), British ecological geneticist
- Margot Forde (1835–1995), New Zealand botanist
- Peter Forsskål (1732–1763), Swedish naturalist
- Georg Forster (1754–1794), German naturalist (abbr. in botany: G.Forst.)
- Peter Forster (geneticist) (born 1967), German geneticist
- Johann Reinhold Forster (1729–1798), German naturalist
- Robert Fortune (1813–1880), Scottish botanist
- Dian Fossey (1932–1985), American zoologist
- Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958), contributor to the discovery of the structure of DNA
- Francisco Freire Allemão e Cysneiro (1797–1874), Brazilian botanist
- Elias Magnus Fries (1794–1878), one of the founders of modern mushroom taxonomy
- Karl von Frisch (1886–1982), Austrian ethologist and Nobel laureate, best known for pioneering studies of bees
- Imre Frivaldszky (1799–1870), Hungarian botanist
- Leonhart Fuchs (1501–1566), German botanist
- José María de la Fuente Morales (1855–1932), Spanish biologist
- Louis Agassiz Fuertes (1874–1927), American ornithologist
G
- Joseph Gaertner (1732–1791), German botanist
- François Gagnepain (1866–1952), French botanist
- Joseph Paul Gaimard (1796–1858), French naturalist
- Biruté Galdikas (born 1946), Canadian primatologist, conducted pioneering studies on orangutans
- Robert Gallo (born 1937), American virologist and co-discoverer of HIV
- William Gambel (1823–1849), American naturalist
- Prosper Garnot (1794–1838), French naturalist
- Charles Gaudichaud-Beaupré (1789–1854), French botanist
- Michael Gazzaniga (born 1939), American cognitive neuroscientist, best known for his research on split-brain patients
- Patrick Geddes (1854–1932), Scottish biologist, sociologist, geographer and pioneering town planner.
- Howard Scott Gentry (1903–1993), American botanist
- John Gerard (1545–1611/12), English botanist
- Conrad von Gesner (1516–1565), Swiss naturalist (abbr. in botany: Gesner)
- Luca Ghini (1490–1566), Italian botanist
- Clelia Giacobini (1931–2010), Italian microbiologist, a pioneer of microbiology applied to conservation-restoration
- John H. Gillespie, American molecular evolutionist and population geneticist
- Ernest Thomas Gilliard (1912–1965), American ornithologist
- Charles Henry Gimingham (1923–2018), British botanist
- Charles Frédéric Girard (1822–1895), French biologist, ichthyologist, herpetologist
- Johann Friedrich Gmelin (1748–1804), German naturalist (abbr. in botany: J.F.Gmel.)
- Johann Georg Gmelin (1709–1755), German naturalist (abbr. in botany: J.G.Gmel.)
- Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin (1744–1774), German botanist (abbr. in botany: S.G.Gmel.)
- Frederick DuCane Godman (1834–1919), English naturalist and ornithologist
- Émil Goeldi (1859–1917), Swiss-Brazilian naturalist and zoologist
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), known for his literary works but also a scientist. In biology: his theory of plant metamorphosis stipulated that all plant formation stems from a modification of the Leaf.
- Camillo Golgi (1843–1926), Italian physician and Nobel prize winner, pioneer in neurobiology
- Jane Goodall (born 1934), British primatologist, ethologist and anthropologist, best known for conducting a forty-year study of chimpanzee social and family life.
- George Gordon (1806–1879), British botanist
- Philip Henry Gosse (1810–1888), English naturalist, originator of the Omphalos hypothesis, or "Last Thursdayism"
- Augustus Addison Gould (1805–1866), American conchologist.
- John Gould (1804–1881), English ornithologist
- Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002), American paleontologist and popular science writer
- Alfred Grandidier (1836–1921), French naturalist and explorer
- Guillaume Grandidier (1873–1957), French naturalist and explorer son of Alfred Grandidier
- Temple Grandin (born 1947), American animal scientist; world-renowned as a designer of humane livestock facilities and for her writings on her experience with autism
- Chapman Grant (1887–1983), American herpetologist
- Pierre-Paul Grassé (1895–1985), French zoologist
- Asa Gray (1810–1888), American botanist
- George Robert Gray (1808–1872), English zoologist
- John Edward Gray (1800–1875), English zoologist
- Andrew Jackson Grayson (1819–1869), American ornithologist
- William King Gregory (1876–1970), American zoologist
- Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon (1862–1933), British ornithologist
- Janet Grieve, New Zealand biological oceanographer
- Frederick Griffith (1879–1941), British bacteriologist
- Jeremy Griffith (born 1945), Australian zoologist
- Jan Frederik Gronovius (1690–1762), Dutch botanist
- Pavel Grošelj (1883–1940), biologist and belletrist
- Colin Groves (1942–2017), professor of biological anthropology in Australia
- Félix Édouard Guérin-Méneville (1799–1874), French entomologist
- Johann Anton Güldenstädt (1745–1781), German naturalist
- Allvar Gullstrand (1862–1930), Swedish ophthalmologist, winner of the 1911 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine "for research on the image formation by the lens of the eye"
- Johann Ernst Gunnerus (1718–1773), Norwegian botanist
- Albert Günther (1830–1914), British zoologist
H
- Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), German physician, zoologist, and evolutionist
- Hermann August Hagen (1817–1893), German entomologist
- J. B. S. Haldane (John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, 1892–1964), British evolutionary biologist and co-founder of population genetics
- William Donald Hamilton (1936–2000), British evolutionary biologist
- Sylvanus Charles Thorp Hanley (1819–1899), British conchologist and malacologist
- Thomas Hardwicke (1755–1835), English naturalist
- Alister Clavering Hardy (1896–1985), English marine biologist and pioneer student of the biological basis of religion
- Richard Harlan (1796–1843), American naturalist, zoologist, physicist and paleontologist
- Denham Harman (1916–2014), American biogerontologist, father of the free radical theory of aging
- David Harrison (1926–2015), English zoologist
- Maarten 't Hart (born 1944), Dutch biologist and writer
- Ernst Hartert (1859–1933), German ornithologist
- Gustav Hartlaub (1814–1900), German zoologist
- Karl Theodor Hartweg (1812–1871), German botanist
- William Henry Harvey (1811–1866), Irish phycologist
- Hans Hass (1919–2013), Austrian biologist
- Frederik Hasselquist (1722–1752), Swedish naturalist
- Arthur Hay, 9th Marquess of Tweeddale (1824–1878), English ornithologist
- James Hector (1834–1907), Scottish geologist, naturalist, and surgeon
- Charles Hedley (1862–1926), naturalist, active in Australia
- Oskar Heinroth (1871–1945), German biologist, a founder of ethology
- Edmund Heller (1875–1939), American zoologist
- Wilhelm Hemprich (1796–1825), German naturalist
- Willi Hennig (1913–1976) German biologist, founder of cladistics
- John Stevens Henslow (1796–1861), English mineralogist, botanist and clergyman
- Johann Hermann (1738–1800), French physician and naturalist
- Albert William Herre (1868–1962), American ichthyologist and lichenologist
- Alfred Hershey (1908–1997), American bacteriologist, winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the genetics of viruses
- Philip Hershkovitz (1909–1997), American mammalogist noted especially as a primatologist
- Leo George Hertlein (1898–1972), American paleontologist and malacologist
- Archibald Vivian Hill (1886–1977), British physiologist, winner of the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for elucidation of mechanical work in muscles
- Brian Houghton Hodgson (1800–1894), English naturalist
- Jan van der Hoeven (1802–1868), Dutch zoologist
- Bruno Hofer (1861–1916), German fisheries scientist
- Johann Centurius Hoffmannsegg (1766–1849), German botanist, entomologist and ornithologist
- Jacques Bernard Hombron (1798–1852), French naturalist
- Leroy Hood (born 1938), American biochemist, developed high speed automated DNA sequencer
- Robert Hooke (1635–1703), British natural philosopher and Secretary to the Royal Society
- Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911), British botanist, explorer and Director of Kew Botanic Gardens
- William Jackson Hooker (1785–1865), British botanist, Director of Kew Botanic Gardens
- John "Jack" Horner (born 1946), American paleontologist, specialized in dinosaurs
- Thomas Horsfield (1773–1859), American naturalist
- Bernardo Houssay (1887–1971), Argentine physiologist, winner of the 1947 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the function of the pituitary hormones in regulating blood sugar (glucose) in animals.
- Martinus Houttuyn (1720–1798), Dutch naturalist
- Albert Howard (1873–1947), British botanist
- Henry Eliot Howard (1873–1940), English ornithologist
- Sarah Blaffer Hrdy (born 1946), U.S. anthropologist who made contributions to evolutionary psychology and sociobiology
- David H. Hubel (1926–2013), Canadian-Born American neurobiologist, winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for research on the visual system
- François Huber (1750–1831), Swiss naturalist
- Ambrosius Hubrecht (1853–1915), Dutch zoologist
- William Henry Hudson (1841–1922), Argentinian-British ornithologist
- Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859), German naturalist and explorer
- Allan Octavian Hume (1829–1912), British ornithologist
- Rob Hume, British ornithologist
- George Evelyn Hutchinson (1903–1991), American ecologist and limnologist
- Frederick Hutton (1835–1905), English biologist and geologist, later worked in New Zealand
- Julian Sorell Huxley (1887–1975), English zoologist and contributor to the modern evolutionary synthesis; first D-G of UNESCO
- Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895), English zoologist and advocate of evolution, agnosticism and scientific education
- Alpheus Hyatt (1838–1902), American neo-Lamarckian
- Libbie Hyman (1888–1969), American invertebrate zoologist
- Josef Hyrtl (1810–1894), Austrian anatomist
I
- Hermann von Ihering (1850–1930), German naturalist
- Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger (1775–1813), German entomologist
- Jan Ingenhousz (1730–1799), Dutch-born British botanist
- Tom Iredale (1880–1972), English conchologist and ornithologist
- Paul Erdmann Isert (1756–1789), German botanist
- Stephen Robert Irwin (1962–2006), Australian naturalist, zoologist and herpetologist.
J
- François Jacob (1920–2013), French biologist, Nobel laureate
- Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin (1727–1817), Dutch-born Austrian botanist
- Honoré Jacquinot (1815–1887), French surgeon and zoologist
- Daniel H. Janzen (born 1939), American entomologist and ecologist
- William Jardine (1800–1874), Scottish naturalist
- Feliks Pawel Jarocki (1790–1865), Polish zoologist
- Thomas C. Jerdon (1811–1872), British zoologist and botanist
- Wilhelm Johannsen (1857–1927), Danish pharmacist who introduced the term gene
- Pauline Johnson, English immunologist and microbiologist concerned with innate and adaptive immune mechanisms
- David Starr Jordan (1851–1931), ichthyologist, 1st president of Stanford
- Félix Pierre Jousseaume (1835–1921), French zoologist and malacologist
- Mike Joy (born 1959), New Zealand freshwater ecologist and science communicator
- Adrien-Henri de Jussieu (1797–1853), French botanist
- Antoine de Jussieu (1686–1758), French naturalist
- Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1748–1836), botanist, biologist (abbr. in botany: Juss.)
- Bernard de Jussieu (1699–1777), French naturalist
- Ernest Everett Just (1883–1941), American biologist
K
- Zbigniew Kabata (1924–2014), Polish parasitologist
- Pehr Kalm (1716–1779), Swedish botanist
- Eric R. Kandel (born 1929), Austrian-born American neuroscientist. Winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the neural correlates of memory
- Ferdinand Karsch (1853–1936), German arachnologist, entomologist, and anthropologist
- Gustav Karl Wilhelm Hermann Karsten (1817–1908), German botanist
- Rudolf Kaufmann (1909–c. 1941), trilobitologist known for his contributions to allopatric speciation and punctuated equilibrium.
- Stuart Kauffman (born 1939), biologist widely known for his promotion of self-organization as a factor in producing the complexity of biological systems and organisms
- Johann Jakob Kaup (1803–1873), German naturalist
- Janet Kear (1933–2004), English ornithologist
- Gerald A. Kerkut (1927–2004), British zoologist and physiologist
- Anton Kerner von Marilaun (1831–1898), Austrian botanist
- Robert Kerr (1755–1813), Scottish surgeon who published The Animal Kingdom in 1792
- Warwick Estevam Kerr (1922–2018), Brazilian geneticist, specialist in bee genetics, introducer of African bees in Brazil
- Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska (1925–2015), Polish paleontologist, led several paleontological expeditions to the Gobi desert
- Motoo Kimura (1924–1994), Japanese mathematical biologist, working in the field of theoretical population genetics
- Carolyn King, New Zealand zoologist, professor at the University of Waikato, specialising in mammals, particularly small rodents and mustelids
- Norman Boyd Kinnear (1882–1957), Scottish zoologist
- William Kirby (1759–1850), English entomologist
- Heinrich von Kittlitz (1799–1874), German naturalist
- Wilhelm Kobelt (1840–1916), German zoologist and malacologist
- Fritz Köberle (1910–1983), Austrian-Brazilian physician and pathologist, student of Chagas disease
- Karl Koch (1809–1879), German botanist
- Robert Koch (1843–1910), German Nobel Prize-winning physician and bacteriologist, who introduced Koch's postulates
- Emil Theodor Kocher (1841–1917), German physician, winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "his work on the physiology, pathology and surgery of the thyroid gland"
- Alexander Koenig (1858–1940), German naturalist
- Albert von Kölliker (1817–1905), Swiss physiologist
- Charles Konig (1774–1851), German naturalist
- Arthur Kornberg (1918–2007), American biochemist who discovered DNA polymerase
- Adriaan Kortlandt (1918–2009), Dutch ethologist
- Albrecht Kossel (1853–1927), German physician and winner of the 1910 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research in cell biology
- Hans Adolf Krebs (1900–1981), German biochemist and winner of the 1953 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the citric acid cycle in cellular respiration
- Gerard Krefft (1830–1881), German-born Australian zoologist and palaeontologist
- Eduardo Krieger (born 1930), Brazilian physician and physiologist
- Kewal Krishan (born 1973), biological anthropologist, specialized in forensic anthropology, serving at Panjab University, Chandigarh, India
- Schack August Steenberg Krogh (1874–1949), Danish physiologist, winner of the 1920 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the mechanism of regulation of the capillaries in skeletal muscle
- Heinrich Kuhl (1797–1821), German zoologist
L
- Henri Laborit (1914–1995), French surgeon and physiologist
- Bernard Germain Étienne de la Ville, Comte de Lacépède (1756–1825), French naturalist
- David Lack (1910–1973), British ornithologist
- Frédéric de Lafresnaye (1783–1861), French ornithologist
- Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), French evolutionist, coined many terms like biology and fossils
- Aylmer Bourke Lambert (1761–1842), British botanist
- Charles Lamberton (1876–1960), French paleontologist
- Hugh Lamprey (1928–1996), British ecologist
- Kai Larsen (1926–2012), Danish botanist
- Charles Francis Laseron (1887–1959), American-born Australian naturalist and malacologist
- John Latham (1740–1837), English naturalist
- Pierre André Latreille (1762–1833), French entomologist
- Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran (1845–1922), French physician, winner of the 1907 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery that the cause of malaria is a protozoon
- George Newbold Lawrence (1806–1855), American ornithologist
- William Elford Leach (1790–1836), English zoologist and marine biologist
- Colin Leakey (1933–2018), British tropical botanist and specialist in bean science
- Joseph LeConte (1823–1901), American physiologist
- Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723), Dutch biologist, developer of the microscope
- François Leguat (c. 1637 – 1735), French naturalist
- Joseph Leidy (1823–1891), American paleontologist
- Johann Philipp Achilles Leisler (1771–1813), Dutch naturalist
- Juan Lembeye (1816–1889), Spanish naturalist
- Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), known as an artist but also an anatomist. Dissected hundreds of specimens and drew exact copies of them
- Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour (1773–1826), French botanist
- Rene Primevere Lesson (1794–1849), French naturalist
- Charles Alexandre Lesueur (1778–1846), French naturalist
- François Le Vaillant (1753–1824), French ornithologist
- Edward B. Lewis (1918–2004), American geneticist and 1995 Nobel Prize-winner
- Richard Lewontin (born 1929), American evolutionary biologist, mathematician, geneticist, and social commentator.
- Wen-Hsiung Li (born 1942), Taiwanese molecular evolutionary biologist
- Emmanuel Liais (1826–1900), French botanist
- Martin Lichtenstein (1780–1867), German zoologist
- John Lightfoot (1735–1788), English conchologist and botanist
- David R. Lindberg (born 1948), American malacologist and biologist
- Aristid Lindenmayer (1925–1989), Hungarian biologist
- John Lindley (1799–1865), English botanist
- Heinrich Friedrich Link (1767–1850), German botanist (abbr. in botany: Link)
- Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778), Swedish botanist; father of the binomial nomenclature system (abbr L. or Linn.)
- Jacques Loeb (1859–1924), German-American biologist
- Friedrich Loeffler (1852–1915), German biologist
- Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989), Austrian founder of ethology
- Harri Lorenzi (born 1949), Brazilian botanist
- John Claudius Loudon (1783–1843), English botanist
- James Lovelock (born 1919), English chemist and father of the Gaia hypothesis
- Percy Lowe (1870–1948), English ornithologist
- Peter Wilhelm Lund (1801–1880), Danish zoologist and paleontologist
- Salvador Luria (1912–1991), microbiologist, Nobel prize winner
- Adolfo Lutz (1855–1940), Brazilian infectologist, pathologist and public health researcher
- André Lwoff (1902–1994), French microbiologist, winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- Richard Lydekker (1849–1915), English naturalist
- Trofim Lysenko (1898–1976), Soviet biologist and agronomist. His denouncement of genetics became known as Lysenkoism.
M
Ma-Mi
- Jules François Mabille (1831–1904), French malacologist
- John Macadam (1827–1865), Scottish-born Australian botanist
- John M. MacDougal (born 1954), American botanist
- William MacGillivray (1796–1852), Scottish naturalist
- Eileen McLaughlin, New Zealand biologist
- Marcello Malpighi (1628–1694), Italian anatomist and biologist
- Ramon Margalef (1919–2004), Catalan biologist and ecologist
- Leo Margolis (1927–1997), Canadian fisheries parasitologist
- Lynn Margulis (1938–2011), American microbiologist
- Alberto della Marmora (1789–1863), Italian naturalist
- Othniel Charles Marsh (1831–1899), American paleontologist
- Barry Marshall (born 1951), Australian physician and microbiologist, winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery that most stomach ulcers are caused by a strain of bacteria
- Bruce Marshall (born 1948), New Zealand malacologist
- Fermín Martín Piera (1954–2001), Spanish botanist
- Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868), German botanist
- John Martyn (1699–1768), English botanist
- Thomas Martyn (1735–1825), English botanist, entomologist and conchologist
- John Marwick (1891–1978), New Zealand palaeontologist and geologist
- Teresa Maryańska (1937–2019), Poland, paleontologist specializing in dinosaurs
- Ruth Mason (1913–1990), New Zealand botanist
- Francis Masson (1741–1805), Scottish botanist
- Gregory Mathews (1876–1949), Australian ornithologist
- Sara Branham Matthews (1888–1962), American microbiologist, listed under B (Branham).
- Paul Matschie (1861–1926), German zoologist
- William Diller Matthew (1871–1930), American paleontologist
- Polly Matzinger (born 1947), American immunologist
- Carl Maximowicz (1827–1891), Russian botanist
- Harold Maxwell-Lefroy (1877–1925), English entomologist
- Robert May (1936–2020), ecologist, mathematician, President of Royal Society of London 2000–2005
- Ernst Mayr (1904–2005), ornithologist, systematist, philosopher of biology; originator of modern definition of "species"
- Barbara McClintock (1902–1992), American biologist, winner of a Nobel Prize for her work on the transposon, or "jumping gene"
- James V. McConnell (1925–1990), American biological psychologist
- Mark McMenamin (born 1958), American paleontologist
- Bruce McEwen (1938–2020), American neuroendocrinologist and stress hormone expert
- Edmund Meade-Waldo (1855–1934), English ornithologist
- Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov (1845–1916), Russian microbiologist, best known for his work on the immune system and phagocytosis, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1908
- Johann Wilhelm Meigen (1764–1845), German entomologist
- Gregor Mendel (1822–1884), Austrian monk who is often called the "father of genetics" for his study of the inheritance of traits in pea plants
- Edouard Menetries (1802–1861), French entomologist
- Maud Leonora Menten (1879–1960), Canadian biochemist and histologist known for work on the kinetics of enzyme action
- Archibald Menzies (1754–1852), Scottish naturalist
- Clinton Hart Merriam (1855–1942), American zoologist and ornithologist
- John C. Merriam (1869–1945), American biologist
- Don Merton (1939–2011), New Zealand conservationist
- Franz Meyen (1804–1840), German botanist
- Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee (1901–1984), American ornithologist
- Otto Fritz Meyerhof (1884–1951), German/American physician and biochemist, winner of the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on muscles
- Leonor Michaelis (1875–1949), German biochemist known for work on enzyme kinetics, and on quinones
- André Michaux (1746–1802), French botanist
- Aleksandr Fyodorovich Middendorf (1815–1894), Russian zoologist
- Nicholai Miklukho-Maklai (1846–1888), Russian marine biologist and anthropologist
- Gerrit Smith Miller, Jr. (1869–1956), American zoologist
- Jacques Miller (born 1931), Australian immunologist.
- John Frederick Miller (1759–1796), English illustrator (primarily of botany)
- Kenneth R. Miller (born 1948), American evolutionary biologist and author of Finding Darwin's God
- Philip Miller (1691–1771), Scottish botanist (abbr. in botany: Mill.)
- Alphonse Milne-Edwards (1835–1900), French zoologist
- Henri Milne-Edwards (1800–1885), French zoologist
- George Jackson Mivart (1827–1900), English biologist
Mo-Mu
- Hugo von Mohl (1805–1872), German botanist
- Paul Möhring (1710–1792), German naturalist
- Juan Ignacio Molina (1740–1829), Chilean naturalist
- Brian Molloy (born 1930), New Zealand botanist
- Pérrine Moncrieff (1893–1979), New Zealand ornithologist
- Jacques Monod (1910–1976), French geneticist and biochemist, and Nobel Prize winner
- George Montagu (1753–1815), English naturalist
- Luc Montagnier (born 1932), French virologist, discoverer of HIV
- Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909–2012), Italian-American neurologist who received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her co-discovery of growth factors
- Tommaso di Maria Allery Monterosato (1841–1927), Italian malacologist
- Pierre Dénys de Montfort (1766–1820), French naturalist
- George Thomas Moore (1871–1956), American botanist
- Alfred Moquin-Tandon (1804–1863), French naturalist
- Otto Andreas Lowson Mörch (1828–1878), malacologist
- Thomas Hunt Morgan (1868–1945), American geneticist. He worked on the natural history, zoology, and macromutation in the fruit fly Drosophila
- Mary Morgan-Richards, New Zealand evolutionary biologist
- Desmond Morris (born 1928), British zoologist and biologist, author of The Naked Ape
- Roger Morse (1927–2000), professor, researcher, author, on bees/beekeeping
- Guy Mountfort (1905–2003), English ornithologist
- Ladislav Mucina (born 1956), Slovak botanist
- Ferdinand von Mueller (1825–1896), German-Australian botanist
- John Muir (1838–1914), American naturalist
- Otto Friedrich Müller (1730–1784), Danish naturalist (abbr. in botany: O.F.Müll.)
- Fritz Müller (1821–1897), German-Brazilian naturalist (abbr. in botany: F.J.Müll.)
- Hermann Müller (Thurgau) (1850–1927), Swiss botanist and oenologist
- Philipp Ludwig Statius Müller (1725–1776), German zoologist
- Salomon Muller (1804–1864), Dutch naturalist
- Kary Mullis (1944–2019), American biochemist, awarded Nobel Prize after inventing the polymerase chain reaction
- Otto von Münchhausen (1716–1774), German botanist
- John Murray (1841–1914), Scots-Canadian marine biologist
N
- Gary Paul Nabhan (born 1952), co-author of Forgotten Pollinators
- Karl Wilhelm von Nageli (1817–1891), Swiss botanist
- Johann Friedrich Naumann (1780–1857), German founder of scientific ornithology
- John Needham (1713–1781), English naturalist
- Christian Gottfried Daniel Nees von Esenbeck (1776–1858), German botanist and zoologist
- Masatoshi Nei (born 1931), American evolutionary biologist and molecular Population Geneticist
- Wendy Nelson New Zealand phycologist
- Randolph M. Nesse (born 1945), American evolutionary biologist and psychiatrist
- Charles F. Newcombe (1851–1924), British botanist
- Frank Newhook (1918–1999), New Zealand plant pathologist
- Alfred Newton (1829–1907), English zoologist
- Margaret Morse Nice (1883–1974), American ornithologist
- Henry Alleyne Nicholson (1844–1899), British zoologist
- Elmer Noble (1909–2001), American parasitologist
- Alfred Merle Norman (1831–1918), English clergyman and naturalist
- Alfred John North (1855–1917), Australian ornithologist
- Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard (born 1942), German biologist and 1995 Nobel Prize-winner
- Thomas Nuttall (1786–1858), English botanist and zoologist
O
- Nils Hjalmar Odhner (1884–1973), Swedish zoologist
- Eugene P. Odum (1913–2002), American ecologist
- Howard T. Odum (1924–2002), American ecologist
- Anders Sandoe Oersted (1816–1872), Danish botanist (abbr. in botany: Oerst.)
- William Ogilby (1808–1873), Irish naturalist
- William Robert Ogilvie-Grant (1863–1924), Scottish ornithologist
- Sergey Ognev (1886–1951), Russian zoologist
- Tomoko Ohta (born 1933), Japanese molecular evolutionary biologist
- Lorenz Oken (1779–1851), German naturalist
- Giuseppe Olivi (1769–1795), Italian naturalist
- Mark A. O'Neill (born 1959), British biologist and computer scientist
- Aleksandr Oparin (1894–1980), Russian biologist and biochemist, best known for his work on the origin of life
- Alcide d'Orbigny (1802–1857), French naturalist
- George Ord (1781–1866), American ornithologist
- Eleanor Anne Ormerod (1828–1901), English entomologist
- Edward Latham Ormerod (1819–1873), FRS, English physician and entomologist
- Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857–1935), eugenicist, AMNH curator
- William Charles Osman Hill (1901–1975), British anatomist, primatologist, and a leading authority on primate anatomy during the 20th century
- Halszka Osmólska (1930–2008), Polish paleontologist specializing in dinosaurs
- Emile Oustalet (1844–1905), French zoologist
- Richard Owen (1804–1892), biologist of nebres(triztan) organisms
P
- George Emil Palade (1912–2008), Romanian-American biologist, discoverer of ribosomes, Nobel Prize
- Paul Maurice Pallary (1869–1942), French-Algerian malacologist
- Peter Simon Pallas (1741–1811), Russian zoologist
- Edward Palmer (1829–1911), British botanist
- Josif Pancic (1814–1888), Serbian botanist
- Paracelsus (Theophrastus von Hohenheim) (1493–1541), German alchemist
- Carl Parrot (1867–1911), German physician and ornithologist
- Louis Pasteur (1822–1895), French biologist, microbiologist, and chemist, established principles of vaccination
- William Paterson (1755–1810), British botanist and explorer
- Robert Patterson (1802–1872), Irish naturalist
- Daniel Pauly (born 1946), French marine biologist
- Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936), Russian physiologist, psychologist and physician, discovered conditioning, won the Nobel Prize for his research on the digestive system
- Titian Peale (1799–1885), American naturalist
- Louise Pearce (1885–1959), American pathologist
- Donald C. Peattie (1898–1964), American botanist
- Eva J. Pell (born 1948), American plant pathologist
- Paul Pelseneer (1863–1945), Belgian malacologist
- Jean-Marie Pelt (1933–2015), French botanist
- Thomas Pennant (1726–1798), Welsh naturalist and antiquary
- David Penny (born 1939), New Zealand evolutionary biologist and geneticist
- Henri Perrier de la Bâthie (1873–1958), French botanist
- George Perry (naturalist), 19th century English naturalist
- Christian Hendrik Persoon (1761–1836), biologist
- Paul Petard (1912–1980), French botanist
- Wilhelm Peters (1815–1883), German naturalist
- Ludwig Karl Georg Pfeiffer (1805–1877), German physician, botanist and conchologist
- Rodolfo Amando Philippi (1808–1904), German-Chilean zoologist
- Constantine John Phipps (1744–1792), English explorer
- David Andrew Phoenix, (born 1966), Biochemist
- Frederick Octavius Pickard-Cambridge (1860–1905), English entomologist
- Octavius Pickard-Cambridge (1828–1917), English entomologist, uncle of above
- Charles Pickering (1805–1878), American naturalist
- Cándido Bolívar Pieltain (1897–1976), Spanish naturalist
- Henry Augustus Pilsbry (1862–1957), American zoologist, malacologist
- Gregory Goodwin Pincus (1903–1967), American biologist and co-inventor of the contraceptive pill
- Ronald Plasterk, (born 1957), Dutch molecular biologist, columnist and politician
- Pliny the Elder (23–79), Roman natural philosopher
- Reginald Innes Pocock (1863–1947), British taxonomist (mammals and arachnids)
- Felipe Poey (1799–1891), Cuban zoologist
- Joel Roberts Poinsett (1779–1851), American botanist
- Henry de Puyjalon (1841–1905), Canadian ecologist and biologist
- Giuseppe Saverio Poli (1746–1825), Italian physicist, biologist and natural historian
- Winston Ponder (born 1941), New Zealand malacologist
- Arthur William Baden Powell (1901–1987), New Zealand malacologist and paleontologist
- Thomas Littleton Powys, 4th Baron Lilford (1833–1896), English ornithologist
- Karel Presl (1794–1852), Bohemian botanist
- Alice Pruvot-Fol (1873–1972), French malacologist
- Jan Evangelista Purkyně (1787–1869), Czech anatomist and physiologist
- Frederick Traugott Pursh (1774–1820), German-American botanist
- Paul Émile de Puydt (1810–1888), Belgian botanist
- Nikolai Przhevalsky (1839–1888), Russian explorer who described some previously unknown animal species
Q
- Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau (1810–1892), French naturalist
- Jean René Constant Quoy (1790–1869), French zoologist
R
- Gustav Radde (1831–1903), German naturalist
- Thomas Stamford Raffles (1781–1826), British founder/first president of the Zoological Society of London
- Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (1783–1840), French naturalist who described many North American species
- Émile Louis Ragonot (1843–1895), French entomologist
- Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852–1934), Spanish histologist and Nobel laureate. Considered the father of neuroscience.
- Edward Pierson Ramsay (1842–1916), Australian ornithologist
- Austin L. Rand (1905–1982), Canadian zoologist
- Suresh Rattan (born 1955), Indian biogerontologist
- John Ray (1627–1705), English naturalist
- Francesco Redi (1626–1697), Italian physician known for his experiment in 1668 which is regarded as one of the first steps in refuting abiogenesis
- Lovell Augustus Reeve (1814–1865), English conchologist
- Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach (1823–1889), German orchidologist (abbr. in botany: Rchb. f.)
- Ludwig Reichenbach (1793–1879), German botanist and ornithologist (abbr. in botany: Rchb.)
- Anton Reichenow (1847–1941), German ornithologist
- Caspar Georg Carl Reinwardt (1773–1854), Dutch botanist
- Bernhard Rensch (1900–1990), German biologist
- Ralf Reski (born 1958), German botanist and biotechnologist, developed Physcomitrella as model organism
- Achille Richard (1794–1852), French botanist (abbr. in botany: A. Rich)
- Jean Michel Claude Richard (1787–1868), French botanist and plant collector (abbr. in botany: J.M.C.Rich.)
- Louis Claude Richard (1754–1821), French botanist (abbr. in botany: Rich.)
- Olivier Jules Richard (1836–1896), French lichenologist (abbr. in botany: O.J.Rich.)
- John Richardson (1787–1865), Scottish naturalist (abbr. in botany: Richardson)
- Charles Richet (1850–1935), French physiologist, winner of the 1913 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of anaphylaxis
- Charles Wallace Richmond (1868–1932), American ornithologist
- Robert Ridgway (1850–1929), American ornithologist
- Henry Nicholas Ridley (1855–1956), British botanist (abbr. in botany: Ridl.)
- Christina Riesselman, American paleoceanographer
- Austin Roberts (1883–1948), South African zoologist
- Harold E. Robinson (born 1932), American botanist and entomologist
- Maurício Rocha e Silva (1910–1983), Brazilian physician and pharmacologist, codiscoverer of bradykinin
- Martin Rodbell (1925–1998), biologist
- Peter Friedrich Röding (1767–1846), German malacologist
- George Romanes (1848–1894), Canadian naturalist, founded the discipline of comparative psychology
- Alfred Romer (1894–1973), specialist in vertebrate paleontology
- Robert Rosen (1934–1998), American theoretical biologist who studied the defining principles of life
- Joel Rosenbaum (born 1933), American cell biologist at Yale University
- Harald Rosenthal (born 1937), German hydrobiologist known for his work in fish farming and ecology
- Miriam Louisa Rothschild (1908–2005), British entomologist
- Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild (1868–1937), British zoologist
- Joan Roughgarden (born 1946), American ecologist, evolutionary biologist and philosopher of science
- William Roxburgh (1759–1815), Scottish botanist
- Adriaan van Royen (1704–1779), Dutch botanist (abbr. in botany: Royen)
- Karl Rudolphi (1771–1832), German physiologist
- Eduard Rüppell (1794–1884), German naturalist
S
Sa-So
- Joseph Sabine (1770–1837), English naturalist
- Julius von Sachs (1832–1897), German botanist
- Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844), French naturalist
- Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1805–1861), French zoologist
- Carl Ulisses von Salis-Marschlins (1762–1818), Swiss naturalist interested in botany, entomology, and conchology
- Edward James Salisbury (1886–1978), British botanist
- Richard Anthony Salisbury (1761–1829), British botanist
- Jonas Salk (1914–1995), American biologist, inventor of polio vaccine
- Robert Sapolsky (born 1957), American neuroscientist
- Georg Ossian Sars (1837–1927), Norwegian marine biologist
- Michael Sars (1809–1869), Norwegian taxonomist
- Konstantin Satunin (1863–1915), Russian zoologist
- William Saunders (1822–1900), American botanist
- Horace-Bénédict de Saussure (1740–1799), Swiss naturalist
- Marie Jules César Savigny (1777–1851), French zoologist
- Thomas Say (1787–1843), American naturalist
- George Schaller (born 1933), American zoologist, widely considered the preeminent field biologist of the 20th century
- Friedrich Schlechter (1872–1925), German botanist
- Hermann Schlegel (1804–1884), German ornithologist
- Matthias Jakob Schleiden (1804–1881), German co-founder of the cell theory
- George Schoener (1864–1941), German-American botanist
- Johann David Schoepf (1752–1800), German botanist and zoologist
- Heinrich Wilhelm Schott (1794–1865), German botanist
- Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber (1739–1810), German naturalist
- Leopold von Schrenck (1826–1894), Russo-German zoologist
- Charles Schuchert (1858–1942), paleontologist
- Theodor Schwann (1810–1882), German physiologist
- Neena Schwartz (1926–2018), American endocrinologist
- Georg August Schweinfurth (1836–1925), German botanist
- Philip Sclater (1829–1913), English zoologist
- Giovanni Antonio Scopoli (1723–1788), Italian-Austrian naturalist
- Henry Seebohm (1832–1895), English ornithologist
- Prideaux John Selby (1788–1867), English botanist and ornithologist
- Nikolai Alekseevich Severtzov (1827–1885), Russian naturalist
- Richard Bowdler Sharpe (1847–1909), English zoologist
- George Shaw (1751–1813), English botanist and zoologist
- George Ernest Shelley (1840–1910), English ornithologist
- Charles Scott Sherrington (1857–1922), British physiologist and neuroscientist
- Philipp Franz von Siebold (1796–1866), German botanist
- George Gaylord Simpson (1902–1984), American paleontologist
- Rolf Singer (1906–1994), German born mycologist
- Liz Slooten, New Zealand zoologist
- John Kunkel Small (1869–1938), American botanist (abbr. in botany: Small)
- Andrew Smith (1797–1872), Scottish zoologist
- Edgar Albert Smith (1847–1916), British zoologist and conchologist
- Frederick Smith (1805–1879), British entomologist
- James Edward Smith (1759–1828), English botanist (abbr. in botany: Sm.)
- Johannes Jacobus Smith (1867–1947), Dutch botanist (abbr. in botany: J.J.Sm.)
- James Leonard Brierley Smith (1897–1968), South African ichthyologist
- John Maynard Smith (1920–2004), biologist
- John Otterbein Snyder (1867–1943), American zoologist
- Solomon H. Snyder (born 1938), American neuroscientist, co-discovered endorphins
- Daniel Solander (1733–1782), Swedish botanist
- Louis François Auguste Souleyet (1811–1852), French zoologist
Sp-Sy
- Douglas Spalding (1841–1877), English biologist, discovered imprinting and conducted some of the earliest research on animal behavior
- Lazzaro Spallanzani (1729–1799), Italian biologist
- Anders Sparrman (1748–1820), Swedish naturalist
- Walter Baldwin Spencer (1860–1929), English biologist and anthropologist
- Roger W. Sperry (1913–1994), American neuropsychologist, winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his split-brain research
- Maximilian Spinola (1780–1857), entomologist
- Johann Baptist von Spix (1781–1826), German naturalist
- Herman Spoering (1733–1771), Finnish botanist
- Kurt Sprengel (1766–1833), German botanist
- Stewart Springer (1906–1991), American ichthyologist noted for expertise in shark classification, behavior, and distribution of species
- Richard Spruce (1817–1893), English botanist
- Agustín Stahl (1842–1917), Puerto Rican zoologist and botanist
- Edward Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby (1775–1851), English naturalist
- Philipp Ludwig Statius Müller (1725–1776), German zoologist
- Japetus Steenstrup (1813–1897), Danish zoologist
- Franz Steindachner (1834–1919), Austrian zoologist
- Leonhard Hess Stejneger (1851–1943), Norwegian zoologist
- Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709–1746), Russian ornithologist
- James Francis Stephens (1792–1853), English zoologist
- Kaspar Maria von Sternberg (1761–1838), Bohemian botanist
- Karl Stetter (born 1941), German microbiologist
- Nettie Maria Stevens (1861–1912), American biologist
- Edward Charles Stirling (1848–1919), Australian anthropologist
- Gerald Stokell (1890–1972), New Zealand horticulturist and ichthyologist
- Witmer Stone (1866–1939), American ornithologist, botanist, and mammalogist
- Gottlieb Conrad Christian Storr (1749–1821), German naturalist
- Vida Stout (1930–2012), New Zealand limnologist
- Eduard Strasburger (1844–1912), German botanist (abbr. in botany: Strasb.)
- Erwin Stresemann (1889–1972), German ornithologist
- John Struthers (1823–1899), Scottish anatomist
- Samuel Stutchbury (1798–1859), English naturalist and geologist
- Richard Summerbell (born 1956), Canadian mycologist
- Carl Jakob Sundevall (1801–1875), Swedish zoologist
- Mriganka Sur (born 1953), Indian cognitive neuroscientist specializing in neuroplasticity
- Henry Suter (1841–1918), New Zealand zoologist, naturalist and palaeontologist
- Mary Sutherland (1893–1955), New Zealand botanist
- William John Swainson (1789–1855), English ornithologist, malacologist, conchologist, entomologist and artist
- Jan Swammerdam (1637–1680), Dutch biologist and microscopist
- Olof Swartz (1760–1816), Swedish botanist (abbr. in botany: Sw.)
- Robert Swinhoe (1836–1877), English naturalist
- Colonel W. H. Sykes (1790–1872), English ornithologist
T
- Wladyslaw Taczanowski (1819–1890), Polish zoologist
- Armen Takhtajan (1910–2009), Russian botanist
- Diana Temple (1925–2006), Australian pharmacologist
- Peter Gustaf Tengmalm (1754–1803), Swedish naturalist
- Coenraad Jacob Temminck (1778–1858), Dutch zoologist
- Theophrastus (372 BC – 287 BC), biologist and the successor of Aristotle in the Peripatetic school, popularizer of science
- Johannes Thiele (1860–1935), German zoologist and malacologist
- Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (1858–1929), British zoologist
- Charles Wyville Thompson (1832–1882), Scottish marine biologist
- D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860–1942), Scottish biologist, author of On Growth and Form
- William Thompson (1805–1852), Irish ornithologist and naturalist
- Louis-Marie Aubert du Petit-Thouars (1758–1831), French botanist
- Carl Peter Thunberg (1743–1828), Swedish naturalist
- Samuel Tickell (1811–1875), British ornithologist
- Niko Tinbergen (1907–1988), Dutch ethologist
- Agostino Todaro (1818–1892), Italian botanist
- Susumu Tonegawa (born 1939), Japanese biologist, winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "discovery of the genetic principle for generation of antibody diversity"
- John Torrey (1796–1873), American botanist, first professional in New World
- Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656–1708), French botanist
- John Kirk Townsend (1809–1851), American ornithologist
- Thomas Stewart Traill (1781–1862), Scottish doctor and naturalist
- Abraham Trembley (1710–1784), Swiss naturalist
- Melchior Treub (1851–1910), Dutch botanist
- Henry Baker Tristram (1822–1906), English ornithologist
- Robert Trivers (born 1943), evolutionary biologist
- Édouard Louis Trouessart (1842–1927), French naturalist
- Frederick W. True (1858–1914), American naturalist
- George Washington Tryon Jr. (1838–1888), American malacologist
- Bernard Tucker (1901–1950), English ornithologist
- Edward Tuckerman (1817–1886), American botanist
- Endel Tulving (born 1927), Estonian-born Canadian neuroscientist, specializes in episodic memory
- Marmaduke Tunstall (1743–1790), English ornithologist
- Ruth Turner (1915–2000), marine biologist
- William Turton (1762–1835), British naturalist
U
- Jakob von Uexküll (1864–1944), Estonian biologist, founder of biosemiotics
V
- Martin Vahl (1749–1804), Norwegian botanist
- Sebastien Vaillant (1669–1722), French botanist
- Achille Valenciennes (1794–1865), French zoologist
- Francisco Varela (1946–2001), Chilean biologist
- Nikolai Vavilov (1887–1943), Soviet botanist and geneticist, died in prison as a defender of "bourgeois pseudoscience" genetics against Lysenkoism
- Damodaran M. Vasudevan (born 1942), Indian physician, immunologist and educationist
- Craig Venter (born 1946), American biologist and businessman
- Edouard Verreaux (1810–1868), French naturalist
- Jules Verreaux (1807–1873), French botanist and ornithologist
- Addison Emery Verrill (1839–1926), American zoologist
- Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot (1748–1831), French ornithologist
- Nicholas Aylward Vigors (1785–1840), Irish zoologist
- Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902), German biologist and pathologist, founder of cell theory
- Oswaldo Vital Brazil (1865–1950), Brazilian physician and immunobiologist, discoverer of several antivenoms against snake, scorpion and spider bites
- Bert Vogelstein (born 1949), American geneticist
- Karel Voous (1920–2002), Dutch ornithologist
- Mary Voytek, American biogeochemist and microbial ecologist
- Hugo de Vries (1848–1935), Dutch botanist
W
- Frans de Waal (born 1948), Dutch ethologist, primatologist and psychologist
- Coslett Herbert Waddell (1858–1919), Irish botanist
- Jeremy Wade (born 1960) Writer and TV presenter with a special interest in rivers and freshwater fish.
- Amy Wagers, biologist, stem cell and regenerative biology
- Johann Georg Wagler (1800–1832), German herpetologist
- Warren H. Wagner (1920–2000), American botanist
- Göran Wahlenberg (1780–1851), Swedish naturalist
- Selman Waksman (1888–1973), American biochemist, winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on antibiotics
- Charles Athanase Walckenaer (1771–1852), French entomologist
- George Wald (1906–1997), American biologist, winner of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on visual perception
- Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913), British naturalist and biologist
- Nathaniel Wallich (1786–1854), Danish botanist
- Benjamin Dann Walsh (1808–1869), American entomologist
- William Grey Walter (1910–1977), American neurophysiologist and roboticist, made a number of important discoveries in the field of electroencephalography
- Deepal Warakagoda (born 1965), Sri Lankan ornithologist
- J. Robin Warren (born 1937), Australian pathologist, winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery that most stomach ulcers are caused by a strain of bacteria
- Charles Waterton (1782–1865), English naturalist
- James D. Watson (born 1928), Nobel Prize-winning biologist, co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule
- Philip Barker Webb (1793–1854), English botanist (abbr. in botany: Webb)
- Hugh Algernon Weddell (1819–1877), English botanist (abbr. in botany: Wedd.)
- Robert Weinberg (born 1942), American cancer biologist
- August Weismann (1834–1914), German biologist
- Friedrich Welwitsch (1806–1872), Austrian botanist
- Karl Wernicke (1848–1905), German physician and neuroanatomist, discovered Wernicke's area
- Victor Westhoff (1916–2001), Dutch botanist
- Alexander Wetmore (1886–1978), American ornithologist
- William Morton Wheeler (1865–1937), American entomologist and myrmecologist
- Gilbert White (1720–1795), English naturalist
- John White (c. 1756–1832), English botanist
- Robert Wiedersheim (1848–1923), German anatomist.
- Prince Alexander Philipp Maximilian zu Wied-Neuwied (1782–1867), German explorer and biologist.
- Hans Wiehler (1930–2003), American botanist (abbr. in botany: Wiehler)
- Eric F. Wieschaus (born 1947), American developmental biologist and 1995 Nobel Prize-winner
- Torsten Wiesel (born 1924), Swedish-born American neurobiologist, winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on information processing in the visual system
- Joan Wiffen (1922–2009), New Zealand paleontologist
- Siouxsie Wiles, New Zealand microbiologist
- Charles Wilkes (1798–1877), American explorer and naturalist
- Carl Ludwig Willdenow (1765–1812), German botanist and pharmacist (abbr. in botany: Willd.)
- George C. Williams (1926–2010), American evolutionary biologist, credited with introducing the gene-centric view of evolution
- Mark Williamson, British biologist
- Francis Willughby (1635–1672), English ornithologist and ichthyologist
- Alexander Wilson (1766–1813), Scottish-American ornithologist
- David Sloan Wilson (born 1949), American evolutionary biologist
- E. A. Wilson (1872–1912), English naturalist
- Edward O. Wilson (born 1929), American entomologist and father of sociobiology, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize
- Sergei Winogradsky (1856–1953), Russian microbiologist, ecologist and soil scientist who pioneered the cycle of life concept and discovered the biological process of nitrification
- Caspar Wistar (1761–1818), American anatomist and physician. The genus Wisteria is named after him
- Henry Witherby (1873–1943), British ornithologist
- William Withering (1741–1799), English botanist
- Carl Woese (1928–2012), American microbiologist, identified the Archaea, a major division of organisms
- Wong Siew Te (born 1969), Malaysian zoologist and Sun Bear expert
- Flossie Wong-Staal (1947–2020), American virologist
- Sewall Wright (1889–1988), American geneticist, co-founder of population genetics
- V. C. Wynne-Edwards (1906–1997), Scottish zoologist, introduced the hypothesis of group selection in evolution
X
- John Xantus de Vesey (1825–1894), American zoologist
Y
- William Yarrell (1784–1856), English naturalist
Z
- Floyd Zaiger (1926–2020), fruit geneticist
- Eberhard August Wilhelm von Zimmermann (1743–1815), German zoologist
- Karl Alfred von Zittel (1839–1904), German palaeontologist
- Joseph Gerhard Zuccarini (1797–1848), German botanist
- Margarete Zuelzer (1877–1944), German biologist and zoologist
See also
- List of biochemists
- List of biogerontologists
- List of botanists by author abbreviation
- List of carcinologists
- List of coleopterists
- List of ecologists
- List of herpetologists
- List of malacologists
- List of mammalogists
- List of microbiologists
- List of mycologists
- List of ornithologists
- List of pathologists
- List of Russian biologists
- List of zoologists by author abbreviation
- List of Nobel Prize winners in physiology or medicine
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