This Day In History: 1872-01-24
John Stanley Gardiner was born on this day. He was a British zoologist and pioneer of coral reef research. His work not only included the identification and taxonomy of corals but also the study of growth rates and feeding strategies, identifying the role played by symbiotic algae in coral nutrition; he also carried out some of the earliest attempts at coral fragmentation and transplantation.
He is honoured in the name of a family, Gardineriidae, the genera Gardineriaand Gardineroseris, and in nearly 60 species under gardineri.