Richard Alan Fortey is a British palaeontologist, natural historian, writer, and television presenter. He was born on 15 February 1946 in London. Fortey has served as president of the Geological Society of London for its bicentennial year of 2007. He is a senior paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London and a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 2002, he was the Collier Professor in the Public Understanding of Science and Technology at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Bristol.

His books have been widely acclaimed: Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth (Knopf) was short-listed for the Rhône-Poulenc Prize in 1998, and Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution (Knopf) was short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize in 2001. His latest book, Earth: An Intimate History (Knopf, 2004), has been described as "dazzling," "remarkable," "splendid," and "important and timely."