Explorer, naturalist, author, and pioneer paleontologist. Born to Cora May Chapman and Charles Andrews, a pharmaceutical salesman, in Beloit, Wisconsin; as a boy, he taught himself taxidermy, and used the money he earned from plying the skill to help pay for his tuition at Beloit College from which he graduated in 1906 with a degree in English. He then moved to New York City in hopes of a job at the American Museum of Natural History. He was hired as a cleaner and assistant in the taxidermy department. He soon proved himself, accomplishing such tasks as retrieving the skeleton of a whale from a Long Island beach in its entirety, and earning a MS degree from Columbia University in 1913. He was made principle on a zoological expedition to Saint Paul's Island, Alaska, where he spent several weeks studying fur seals during the summer of 1913. Further expeditions to Indonesia, China, Japan, and Korea, where he observed and collected marine mammal specimens, followed. He was then sent on his first expedition to the Gobi Desert in 1922. His team excavated the complete remains of several small dinosaurs, the first dinosaurs ever discovered north of the Himalayas. His second expedition in 1923 made his name when his team recovered the skull of one of the earliest known mammals, as well as the first examples of fossilized dinosaur eggs; 25 eggs were recovered during the expedition, which were said to have belonged to the horn-faced, herbivorous Proceratops andrewsi, later named for him as expedition leader. One egg was eventually auctioned off for $5,000 to help pay for his next expedition. The 1925 Gobi expedition uncovered seven additional mammal skulls, as well as partial mammal skeletons. That same year he published 'Reading the Rocks of Asia' which included expedition reports, followed by, 'On the Trail of Ancient Man' in 1926. He received an honorary doctorate from Beloit College in 1928. In 1929, he published the biographical adventure, 'Ends of the Earth.' He was forced to abandon field work in Asia after 1930, as a result of regional instability. In 1934, he was appointed the director of the American Museum of Natural History. He wrote prolifically, as he adjusted to a more sedentary lifestyle, and published more than twenty books, including 'The New Conquest of Central Asia' (1932), 'This Business of Exploring (1935), 'Exploring with Andrews' (1938), 'This Amazing Planet (1940), 'Under a Lucky Star' (1943), and 'Meet Your Ancestors, a Biography of Primitive Man' (1945). He retired as director in 1941, but continued to write, publishing such works as 'Heart of Asia: True Tales of the Far East' (1951), the children's book, 'All About Dinosaurs' in 1953, which is still in print, 'All About Strange Beasts of the Past' (1956), 'In the Days of Dinosaurs' (1959), and 'Beyond Adventure: The Lives of Three Explorers' (1962). He succumbed to heart failure at the age of 76. The Roy Chapman Andrews Society was founded in 1999, and Charles Gallenkamp published a biography, 'Dragon Hunter,' in 2001. Popular speculation suggests his career as one of the inspirations for the character of Indiana Jones.