Edward Osborne Wilson was a scientist, naturalist, and writer from the United States. His expertise was myrmecology, or the research of ants, for which he was known as the world's foremost specialist, and he was known as Ant-Man. Wilson has been dubbed 'the father of sociobiology' and 'the father of biodiversity' for his environmentalism as well as his secular-humanist and deist views on religion and ethical issues. His achievements in ecological theory include the idea of island biogeography, which provided as the framework for the subject of nature reserve design, and also Stephen P. Hubbell's unified neutral concept of biodiversity.

Publications including Time and the Encyclopaedia Britannica named Wilson one of the world's foremost researchers and influential persons. He was an official representative of more than 30 world-renowned and prominent organizations, institutes, and institutions, and he won over 150 outstanding prizes and medals from throughout the world. Several animal species, predominantly ant species, but also one bird as well as one bat species, have been formally named in his honor.