Phil Heemstra

Phillip Clarence Heemstra (9 December 1941 – 29 August 2019) was an American-South African ichthyologist. He was born in Melrose Park, Illinois, United States as the son of Clarence William Heemstra and his wife, Lydia (born Epcke). He attended school in Ottawa, Illinois, and completed a B.Sc. Zoology in 1963 at the University of Illinois at Urbana, Illinois, as well as his MSc degree (1968) and doctorate (1974) in marine biology at the University of Miami in Miami, Florida. He moved to live in South Africa in 1978.

At the time of his death, Heemstra was a curator emeritus of the South African Institute of Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB, formerly the J.L.B. Smith Institute of Ichthyology). He specialized in ichthyology and marine fish taxonomy.