David Eduard van Dijk (born 14 September 1925) is a Herpetologist and Paleontologist and author of a number of Biology textbooks.
[1] Species named for him include the frog, Amietia vandijki (Van Dijk's river frog) (Visser & Channing).,[2] first known only as tadpoles; the fossil plant bug, Australoprosoboloides vandijki (Riek);[3] the plant fossil, "Estcourtia vandijki" (Anderson & Anderson) and the genus Vandijkophrynus (Van Dijk's toads)[4] Eddie has published in a number of fields including Zoology, Geology, Ichnology and Paleontology over a more than 65 year academic career, with the first, his M.Sc thesis in 1955 and most recently, publication of an article on Ichnology in 2021.
Somewhat more than a decade after his retirement, he undertook a second MSc (Palaeontology) at Stellenbosch University.
While repaying his Loan Bursary, he was a technician in the Bacteriology Laboratory of the South African Institute for Medical Research.
Thereafter he lectured in the Zoology Department, University of Natal for approximately 30 years.