Written by Chris Raper, UK Species Inventory Manager
Sadly, the end of March saw the passing of Richard Shotbolt, a great contributor to the UK Species Inventory (UKSI) and developer of the routines that synchronise the British Mycological Society’s checklist to the world list.
Richard was a very keen naturalist, programmer, astronomer and gardener, but I knew him primarily through his years of work with me to keep the British mycology checklist up to date. His software took around 18 months of hard work to develop, but once running it transformed a taxonomic group that was incredibly difficult and laborious to maintain, to one that was always up to date and perfectly in tune with modern taxonomy.
I had the pleasure of spending many hours working with Richard and chatting about life and will always remember a very intelligent and modest chap. He was never happier than when he was in his Norfolk garden with his dog Dougal; or puzzling over some complex programming issue or just chatting about the natural world.
You can read more about Richard on the British Mycological Society’s website
The thoughts of the NBN Trust are with Richard’s family and friends at this sad time.