John Alfred Talent

John Alfred Talent (18 October 1932 – 27 March 2024) was an Australian palaeontologist whose research and teaching career was spent largely at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He studied science at the University of Melbourne, graduating in science with majors in geology, chemistry and mathematics in 1953 He obtained a PhD in 1959 on the thesis Contributions to the stratigraphy and palaeontology of the Silurian and Devonian of Gippsland. He followed this in 1966 by taking a bachelor of arts degree in 1966 with majors in French and fine arts, and a minor in Arabic.

Talent served as president of the International Palaeontological Association in 1999. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Victoria in 1996.

Contributions His interests covered many fossil animal taxa, particularly brachiopods and conodonts. He worked collaboratively with scientists in many other countries, notably Russia, as well as in Australia where his principal collaborator Ruth Mawson and numerous graduate students helped to build a legacy of inter-related publications. Talent and collaborators worked diligently for several years to catalogue the various types of misrepresentation involved, concluding that deliberate deception by Gupta took many forms, that his body of work was "fictitious".

Eponymy Talent had many species and genera named in his honour, including:

Classis: Bivalvia: Cornellites talenti , 1991 Notonucula talenti , 1999 Classis: Cephalopoda: Talenticeras talenti , 1965 Talenticeras , 1965 Classis Conodonta Icriodus talenti , 2006 Polygnathus talenti , 2002 Classis: Gastropoda Palaeoalvania talenti , 1994 Classis: Pterobranchia Stelechocladia talenti , 1997 Classis: Trilobita: Australoscutellum talenti , 2016 Homalonotus talenti , 2005 Proteus talenti , 1971 Phylum: Brachiopoda: Atrypina talenti , 1970 Molongella talenti , 1974 Notoconchidium talenti , 2013 Reticulariopsis talenti , 1985 Spinella talenti , 1970 Talentella , 1990 Phylum Arthropoda, Classis Branchiopoda Cyzicus talenti , 1987