A. Peter Klimley

Dr. A. Peter Klimley has studied animal behavior for over four decades. He received an MS in oceanography from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami, Florida, and a PhD in marine biology from Scripps Institution of Oceanography of the University of California, San Diego.

The topics of Pete’s early studies ranged from the complex social habits and keen navigational abilities of hammerhead sharks to the feeding tactics and communication behavior of white sharks. Much of his latter career has been devoted to describing the movement ecology of a broad diversity of fish species, and he has pioneered the development of many tracking technologies, being involved in the development and first use of autonomous tag detecting receivers as well as in the development of the geolocational algorithms used in archival tags. In 2006, Dr. Klimley helped form MigraMar, a multinational team of scientists from Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru working on research and conservation of migratory marine species in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. Over his career, Pete has written almost 200 scientific articles and four books. He was co-editor of “Great White Sharks: The Biology of Carcharodon carcharias,” and produced the comprehensive reference volume, “The Biology of Sharks and Rays.” He recently published a 114-page ethogram, or catalog of behaviors, of the chondrichthyans—sharks, rays, and chimeras—in a special issue on elasmobranch cognition in the journal Behaviour, on which he was also a guest editor.