Mike Archer (paleontologist)

Archer was born in Sydney but raised in the United States and studied at Princeton University. From 1972 to 1978, he was the curator of mammals at the Queensland Museum. Since 1983, he has been involved with the exploration of the Riversleigh fossil site in Queensland. He is regularly engages in active debates with creationists. During his time as director of the Australian Museum, he was the initiator of attempts to clone the Thylacine, an animal that went extinct in 1936. Archer has stated that he is obsessed with bringing the thylacine back to life via cloning. He has said that his obsession is going to push the research further and further until he and his team will have their first living thylacine clone. In 2011, Archer published an article asserting that a vegetarian diet causes more suffering and deaths of animals than an omnivorous diet based on sustainable husbandry. Archer is married to the paleontologist Suzanne Hand, with whom he has two daughters. Below is a list of taxa that Archer has contributed to naming: ==Honours==

• 1984: Clarke Medal, Royal Society of New South Wales • 1987: Inaugural Queensland Museum Medal for Research • 1989: Australian Heritage Award for Nature Conservation • 1990: Inaugural Eureka Prize for the Promotion of Science • 1990: Inaugural IBM Conservation Award for Research • 1994: Mueller Medal, ANZAAS • 1996: Verco Medal, Royal Society of South Australia • 1998: Australian Skeptic of the Year • 2002: Fellow, Australian Academy of Science (FAA) • 2008: Member of the Order of Australia (AM) • 2009: Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales (FRSN) • 2019: Romer-Simpson Medal of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (USA) • 2025: Robert Etheridge Jr Medal, The Australasian Palaeontologists (AAP) and the Geological Society of Australia ==Publications==

• Archer, M. (Ed.) (1982). Carnivorous Marsupials. Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales, 1982. (2 volumes) • Archer, M. and Clayton, C. (Eds.) (1984). Vertebrate Zoogeography & Evolution in Australasia: Animals in Space & Time. Hesperian Press. • Archer, M. and Flannery, T.F. with Grigg, G.C. (1985) The Kangaroo. Kevin Weldon Press. • Archer, M., Hand, S. and Godthelp, H. (1986). ''Uncovering Australia's Dreamtime''. Surrey Beatty & Sons • Archer, M. (Ed.) (1987). Possums and Opossums: Studies in Evolution. Surrey Beatty & Sons in association with the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales. • Cronin, L. (Ed.) (1987). ''Koala: Australia's Endearing Marsupial''. Reed Books Pty, Ltd. (text by Archer et al.) • Long, J.A., Archer, M., Flannery, T. and Hand, S. (2002). Prehistoric mammals of Australia and New Guinea: One hundred million years of evolution. University of NSW Press. • Archer, M., Hand, S. and Godthelp, H. (2000). ''Australia's lost world: Prehistoric animals of Riversleigh''. Indiana University Press. • ==References==