that fungi had close but still poorly understood inter-relationships with plants and animals including man. In 2016, he presented the BBC Four programme Nature’s Wonderlands: Islands of Evolution, a three part series on evolution on islands. He appeared on BBC Two's "University Challenge – The Professionals" in 2004, as a member of the Palaeontological Association team, who beat the Eden Project. Honours Fortey was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for services to palaeontology and geology. Books A Curious Boy, William Collins (2021, ISBN 978-0-00-832396-7) Fossils: The Key to the Past, Natural History Museum (1982, fifth edition 2015) The Hidden Landscape, Jonathan Cape (1993, ), Bodley Head (revised edition 2010) Life: An Unauthorised Biography. A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth, HarperCollins (1997, ) Folio Society edition (2008) Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution, HarperCollins (2000, ) The Earth: An Intimate History, HarperCollins (2004, ) Folio Society edition (2011) Dry Store Room no.1, HarperCollins (2008, ) Survivors : The animals and Plants that Time has Left Behind, HarperCollins (2011), published as Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms (2012) in the US. The Wood for the Trees: The Long View of Nature from a Small Wood, William Collins (2016, ) He has also penned humorous titles under two pseudonyms. The Roderick Masters Book of Money Making Schemes, or How to Become Enormously Wealthy with Virtually no Effort, published anonymously Rutledge & Kegan Paul Ltd (1981, ) Bindweed's Bestseller Ed. Heather & David Godwin, Jackie & Richard Fortey, Pan Books (1982, ) Awards and honours For his academic research he has won the Lyell Medal of the Geological Society of London, the Linnean Medal for Zoology of the Linnean Society of London, the Frink Medal of the Zoological Society of London, the R. C. Moore Medal of the SEPM, the T. N. George Medal of the Geological Society of Glasgow; in 1997 he was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society. His popular science writing has earned him the Natural World Book of the Year award (1994) for The Hidden Landscape; the Lewis Thomas Prize for science writing (2003) and is the 2006 holder of the Royal Society's Michael Faraday Prize for the public communication of science. In 1998, Life: An Unauthorised Biography was shortlisted for the Rhône-Poulenc Prize, in 2001, Trilobite!: Eyewitness to Evolution was shortlisted the