Richard Erskine Frere Leakey (born 1944), a leading Kenyan researcher in human prehistory and wildlife conservationist, was responsible for many of the most important discoveries pertaining to early human evolution.

Richard Erskine Frere Leakey, the second son of Louis and Mary Leakey, was born in Nairobi on December 19, 1944. His father, Louis Leakey, was born in Kenya of British missionary parents. Louis grew up among the Kikuyu and differed from most British colonists in considering himself an African, as opposed to a European living in Africa. Likewise, Richard was a Kenyan; he mastered Kiswahili earlier than English and became a Kenyan citizen. As a child, he frequently accompanied his famous parents on their archaeological and paleontological expeditions. In the late 1940s, they were working at Miocene ape sites on Lake Victoria, and by the age of six Richard learned to help collect skeletal material. He was educated through secondary school...