The lives of creatures obscure, misunderstood, and wonderful: A volume in honour of Ken Aplin 1958–2019 was a genius and the toughest man we knew. He was also extraordinarily generous of spirit. The way he gave of himself, his time, and his hard-won stores of knowledge, was legendary amongst his friends and colleagues. We admired him and we loved him.” These are the opening words from editors Kristofer M. Helgen, Julien Louys, Sue O’Connor, for the special edition of the Records of the Australian Museum, a collection of papers in Honour of Ken Aplin. The opening lines touch on some of the marvellous qualities of Ken; he was what many would refer to as a ‘Renaissance man.’ Not only was Ken a polymath in a number of diverse areas but also a man rich in personality – he was extremely humorous, truly grounded and extraordinarily resilient. In fact, he chalked up most of the tropical diseases in the tropical disease textbook! The lives of creatures obscure, misunderstood, and wonderful: A volume in honour of Ken Aplin 1958–2019
