William Eschmeyer

William Neil Eschmeyer (February 11, 1939 – December 30, 2024) was an American ichthyologist. His father, Reuben Eschmeyer, was the head of fisheries for the Tennessee Valley Authority. Eschmeyer took an undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of Michigan, followed by a doctorate in Marine Biology at the University of Miami.

Eschmeyer was the founder of the Catalog of Fishes, a worldwide fish database. This work started with the publication of "Catalog of the Genera of Recent Fishes" in 1990. The first Catalog of Fishes followed in 1998, as three print volumes and a CD-ROM, and the database was subsequently moved online. The name was changed to as Eschmeyer's Catalog of Fishes in 2019. Eschmeyer also co-wrote a popular book on fish, the Peterson Field Guide to Pacific Coast Fishes, and published 61 research articles on fish taxonomy. Eschmeyer died on December 30, 2024, at the age of 85.