Douglas Emlong

{{short description|American paleontologist}}

Douglas Ralph Emlong (April 17, 1942–June 1980) was an amateur fossil collector from the Oregon Coast in the northwestern United States. His collections contributed to the discovery and description of numerous extinct marine mammal species, many of which are ancestral to extant groups. Described as an 'indefatigable'{{cite web|title=An unusual small "pug-nosed" dolphin, Simocetus rayi, from Oligocene rocks of the northeastern Pacific|work=Department of Geology, University of Otago, New Zealand|date=November 2007|url=http://www.otago.ac.nz/geology/features/paleontology/simocetus-rayi.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071222001621/http://www.otago.ac.nz/geology/features/paleontology/simocetus-rayi.html|archive-date=2007-12-22}} fossil collector with 'Promethian prowess in discovery of unprecedented vertebrate fossils',{{cite book | title=Two new Oligocene desmostylians and a discussion of tethytherian systematics| url=https://archive.org/details/twonewoligocene59domn|author1=Daryl P. Domning |author2=Clayton Edward Ray |author3=Malcolm C. McKenna | year=1986}} he contributed substantially to the field from the age of fourteen. The ancestral pinniped Enaliarctos emlongi was named in his honor by Annalisa Berta in 1991.{{cite book | title=New Enaliarctos*(Pinnipedimorpha) from the Oligocene and Miocene of Oregon and the role of "Enaliarctids" in Pinniped phylogeny| url=https://archive.org/details/newenaliarctosp69bert|author=Annalisa Berta| year=1991}}