British authority on general zoology at the turn of the 19th century, who made important contributions to comparative anatomy, embryology, parasitology, and anthropology.

In 1871, while a student at the University of Oxford, Lankester became one of the first persons to describe protozoan parasites in the blood of vertebrates, an important development in the diagnosis and treatment of such parasitic diseases as malaria. While professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at the University of London (1874–90), his research in invertebrate morphology and embryology provided evidence in support of the theories of evolution and natural selection. He further supported these theories through his pioneering research in anthropology, which he pursued during his terms as professor at Oxford (1890–98) and at the Royal Institution, London (1898–1900), and as director of the British Museum of Natural History (1898–1907). He was knighted in 1907.

In “The Significance of the Increased Size of the Cerebrum in Recent as Compared with Extinct Animals” (1899), Lankester emphasized that an inherited ability to learn, allowing cultural advances to be transmitted between generations socially, was an important factor in human evolution. His discovery of flint implements in Suffolk demonstrated the presence of skilled workers during the Pliocene Epoch (5.3 to 1.6 million years ago).

He wrote some 200 scientific papers and edited the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science (1869–1920), founded by his father in 1860. Among his larger works are Comparative Longevity in Man and the Lower Animals (1870), Degeneration (1880), and Great and Small Things (1923).