Lim Boo Liat (21 August 1926 – 11 July 2020) was a Malaysian zoologist whose pioneering work revealed the biological diversity of the Malay Peninsula and Borneo.
He was bestowed several honors during his long career, including being the first Southeast Asian to receive Honorary Membership in the American Society of Mammalogists, and winning the Merdeka Award in 2013.
[2] Lim was sixteen years old when World War II came to Malaya, disrupting his studies; he worked odd jobs to support his family.
[2] Although lacking formal education, the zoological knowledge Lim learned on Carey Island provided the opportunity to take a temporary lab assistant position at the Institute for Medical Research (IMR) in Kuala Lumpur after World War II.
[3] After his retirement, Lim became the honorary consultant on zoology for the Department of Wildlife and National Parks Peninsular Malaysia, helping to establish a research laboratory for small animals.
[1] Throughout his career, he was an author on over 300 scientific papers and wrote multiple books, including Poisonous Snakes of Peninsula Malaysia (1979), Orang Asli Animal Tales (1981), and Turtles of Borneo (1999).