Knud Andersen (mammalogist)

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Knud Christian Andersen (April 29, 1867 – disappeared June 1918) was a Danish zoologist who specialized in the study of bats. In the late 19th century he started as an ornithologist and conducted field work on the Faroe Islands. In 1901, King Ferdinand I appointed him to the Zoological Museum of Sofia, but he left the position due to difficult working conditions. In 1904 he was hired by the British Museum to study bats in the Pacific, Southeast Asia, and Queensland. He focused on flying foxes and horseshoe bats, describing 15 new species and publishing 13 scientific papers on Southeast Asian horseshoe bats. His best-known work is the Catalogue of the Chiroptera in the Collection of the British Museum, a major reference on flying foxes. He was elected a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London in 1909.

In June 1918 Andersen disappeared in England; his body was never found. His colleague Oldfield Thomas completed his final manuscript and noted that Andersen expected to be away from scientific work for some time.

Several bat species were named after him, though some names have since been revised: Rhinolophus anderseni (named in 1909) is no longer a valid name, and the subspecies anderseni and aequalis are now considered synonyms of Rhinolophus arcuatus and Rhinolophus acuminatus. Dobsonia anderseni (1914) and Artibeus anderseni (1916) were also named in his honor.