Menno Schilthuizen (born 1965, Vlaardingen) is a Dutch evolutionary biologist, ecologist, and permanent research scientist at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden and a professor of evolution and biodiversity at Leiden University.
He has published numerous articles about evolution and ecology and six popular science books. His studies have concerned land snails and beetles. His Nature’s Nether Regions, on the evolution of genitalia, was published by Penguin in May 2014. Translations have appeared in Dutch, German, Chinese, Greek, Japanese, French and Italian. His book, Darwin Comes to Town, is on “urban evolution”, evolutionary adaptation in cities, and has appeared in 2018 in English (with Quercus [UK] and Picador [USA]), and in Chinese, Dutch, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, and Spanish. French and Turkish translations are in preparation.
Books in order of publication (In Dutch and English):
Frogs Flies & Dandelions: The Making of Species, 2002. Oxford University Press. 254 pages.
The Loom of Life: Unravelling Ecosystems, 2008. Springer. 168 pages.
Nature’s Nether Regions: What the Sex Lives of Bugs, Birds, and Beasts Tell Us About Evolution, Biodiversity, and Ourselves. 2014. Viking / Penguin. 256 pages.
Darwin Comes to Town, 2018. Quercus Books
Wie Wat Bewaart, 2020. Unieboek Het Spectrum. (in Dutch, with Freek Vonk)
The Urban Naturalist, 2025. MIT Press
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