Charles Lamberton

Charles Lamberton (23 April 1876 – 8 October 1960) was a French paleontologist who lived and studied on the island of Madagascar between 1911 and 1948 and specialized in the recently extinct subfossil lemurs. He made significant contributions towards fixing misattributions of skeletal remains and poor interpretations of subfossil lemur behavior. His paleontological expeditions during the 1930s led to the discovery of a new species of Mesopropithecus, a type of sloth lemur. Three species—one mammal and two reptiles—were named after him, although one is now considered a taxonomic synonym.

Career

Charles Lamberton lived on the island of Madagascar between 1911 and 1948, where he was employed as a Professor at Gallieni College and as a Secretary for the Malagasy Academy. During much of his career, which spanned from 1912 to 1956, he wrote extensively about the recently extinct, subfossil fauna of Madagascar.

For nearly 50 years, Lamberton studied the subfossil lemurs, a group of extinct, giant lemurs that died out shortly after the arrival of humans to the island. During the 1930s, Lamberton led several paleontological expeditions primarily to the southwest of Madagascar. In 1936, based on cranial remains he had discovered, Lamberton named and described a species of sloth lemur, Mesopropithecus globiceps, which he initially placed under another genus.

During the early 1900s, reconstructions of subfossil lemurs were poor interpretation due to misattributions of postcranial bones.