• Abel Ferrara, a man with grey hair and dressed in a light grey suit, stands with his arms crossed in front of a red circle.

John Ray and Archives of Natural History

English naturalist John Ray was born in November 1627. Generally regarded as one of the earliest English parson-naturalists, he is credited as “the originator of the criterion of common parentage for conspecificity”. Ray wrote widely on botany, natural theology, taxonomy…