Collections & Research Staff
David Rudkin
Assistant Curator
Invertebrate Palaeontology
B.Sc., Geology and Biology, University of Toronto, 1975
Dave Rudkin is an Assistant Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology at the ROM and is a cross-appointed lecturer in the Geology Department at the University of Toronto, where he teaches 2nd-year undergraduate palaeontology.
Like most of his fellow earth scientists, Dave Rudkin grew up with an abiding fascination for the natural world in general, but fossils and minerals obviously held a particular thrall. Perhaps because rocks didn’t smell quite as much as live voles, dead frogs, or dried crayfish, his family actively encouraged his geological collecting activities above biological ones and patiently tolerated demands to stop at every road cut and outcrop encountered on annual camping vacations.
Dave Rudkin was born and raised in the Toronto area, and to balance these childhood field forays, there were also frequent opportunities to visit the ROM, where a primal fear of encountering mummies around every corner was overcome by the stronger lure of seeing the fossil and mineral displays. Throughout his high school years and during subsequent geology and biology studies at the University of Toronto, the ROM functioned as an extended classroom, a learning laboratory, and a quiet refuge. Sometime during that interval, he became determined it would also be his place of employment.
By very good fortune (and with a little dogged persistence), Dave’s ROM career began in Spring, 1974 in what was then the Department of Invertebrate Palaeontology. Under the glorified title of ROM Researcher, he joined two other undergraduates assisting with the initial computerization of catalogue records and general lab work. When the others went back to school in the fall, he stayed on as part-time cataloguer, unknowingly setting himself up for an extraordinary opportunity. The ROM’s first Burgess Shale expedition, organized by Desmond Collins, headed to Yoho National Park (British Columbia) in June 1975, and he signed on as a field assistant to collect at the most famous fossil locality in the world!
For more than 30 years now, he has had the continuing good fortune to remain at the ROM, as a Technician, Curatorial Assistant, and Assistant Curator, developing research projects on trilobites, trace fossils and the palaeontology of the Hudson Bay and James Bay lowlands, among many others. Fieldwork, including many return trips to the Burgess Shale, is an important component of all these studies. He is also active in geoscience education, organizing and promoting interest in geology and palaeontology through public programs, field trips, lectures, exhibitions, and popular writing.
Recent Publications
| 2010 | Collette, J. and D.M. Rudkin. "Phyllocarid crustaceans from the Silurian Eramosa Lagerstätte (Ontario, Canada): taxonomy and functional morphology." Journal of Paleontology, 84: 118-127. |
| 2010 | Vinther, J. and D.M. Rudkin. "The first articulated specimen of Plumulites canadensis (Woodward, 1889) from the Upper Ordovician of Ontario, with a review of the anterior region in Plumulitidae (Annelida: Machaeridia)." Palaeontology, 53: 327-334. |
| 2009 | Rudkin, D.M. “Head down in the Paleozoic Sea.” ROM Magazine, 42(1): 13. |
| 2009 | Rudkin, D.M. "The Mount Stephen Trilobite Beds." In A Burgess Shale Primer - History, Geology, and Research Highlights, edited by J.-B. Caron and D. Rudkin. The Burgess Shale Consortium, Toronto, pp 90-102. |
| 2009 | Rudkin, D.M. and G.A. Young. "Horseshoe Crabs - an ancient ancestry revealed." In Biology and Conservation of Horseshoe Crabs, edited by J. Tanacredi, M. Botton, and D. Smith. Springer, New York, pp 25-44. |
| 2008 | Rudkin, D.M., G.A. Young, and G.S. Nowlan. "The oldest horseshoe crab: a new xiphosurid from Late Ordovician Konservat-Lagerstatten deposits, Manitoba, Canada." Palaeontology, 51: 1-9. |
| 2007 | Young, G.A., D.M. Rudkin, E.P. Dobrzanski, S. Robson, and G.S. Nowlan. "Exceptionally preserved Late Ordovician biotas from Manitoba, Canada." Geology, 35: 883-886. |
| 2006 | Caron, J.-B., A. Scheltema, C. Schander, and D.M. Rudkin. "A soft-bodied mollusc with radula from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale." Nature, 442: 159-163. |
| 2003 | Rudkin, D.M., G. A. Young, R. J. Elias, and E. P. Dobrzanski. "The world's biggest trilobite – Isotelus rex new species from the Upper Ordovician of northern Manitoba, Canada." Journal of Paleontology, 77: 99-112. |
Publications List (PDF)
Research Projects
Palaeobiology, Palaeoecology, and Taphonomy
ROM Images
Fossils
Other Links
University of Toronto Faculty Page
Contact Information
Royal Ontario Museum
Department of Natural History
100 Queen's Park
Toronto, ON
M5S 2C6
Tel: 416.586.5592
Fax: 416.586.5553
E-mail: davidru@rom.on.ca
Dave Rudkin. Photo credit: E. Rudkin.
Polar Bear: indigenous summer resident and bane of visiting palaeontologists, Akimiski Island, 2001. Photo credit: D. Rudkin.
Low level aerial view of Houston Point, Akimiski Island, looking north over James Bay; raised beach ridges surround eroded Silurian reef cores in the Attawapiskat Formation. Photo credit: D. Rudkin.
