James William Kitching was born on 6 February 1922 in South Africa and grew up in Nieu-Bethesda, where from age six he collected fossils for paleontologist Robert Broom. At age seven he discovered the type specimen of Youngopsis kitchingi, the first of many new species he would contribute to science.[1]
When the University of the Witwatersrand founded the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research in 1945, Kitching became its first staff member, tasked with collecting fossils from the Karoo. Despite lacking a conventional undergraduate education, he was permitted to pursue a Master's degree and was awarded a doctorate in 1972 for his work refining the biostratigraphy of the Beaufort Group. In 1970-71 he joined a US Antarctic Research Program expedition and, with Jim Collinson, became the first to identify therapsid fossils there -- confirming the ancient continental link between southern Africa and Antarctica.[1][1]
In 1977 Kitching recovered seven fossil Massospondylus eggs later shown, in 2000, to be among the oldest vertebrate eggs ever found, preserved well enough to reveal early evidence of dinosaur parental care. He retired as director of the Bernard Price Institute in 1990 and died on 24 December 2003, regarded as one of the world's greatest fossil finders.[1]