Alick Walker

Alick Donald Walker ( born October 26, 1925 in Skirpenbeck, East Yorkshire, † 4 December 1999 ) was a British vertebrate paleontologist who dealt with fossil reptiles and dinosaurs.

Walker initially studied engineering at Cambridge until 1944, then was a radio technician in the Royal Navy and began in 1948 to study geology at the University of Bristol. After graduating in 1951 he went to the University of Newcastle, where he at Stanley Westoll on fossil reptiles of the Upper Triassic of Elgin ( Moray ) that were known since the 19th century and were edited by Friedrich von Huene, but after this long no more. They were mostly poorly preserved and Walker developed a new method to make with the help of PVC plastic replicas of the fossils, which held the anatomical details well. His doctoral thesis from 1957 dealt primarily Stagonolepis. In 1964, a monograph on Ornithosuchus, in which he also revised Eustreptospondylus. In Newcastle, he was a lecturer in geology in 1954 and worked together with the zoologist Alec Panchen. In 1983 he retired due to heart problems.

He returned later renewed to Elgin back and published on the local finds, so 2002 with Michael J. Benton on Erpetosaurus. Many of his studies, he did not publish, but put them colleagues.

Mid-1960s, he turned to the Middle Triassic in the Midlands and demonstrated that the absence of the shell stage was due to the predominantly terrestrial sedimentation at this time in the UK ( with fossil remains of basal archosaurs and Rhynchosauria ).

From the late 1960s he dealt with the origins of crocodiles and birds. In 1972 he published in Nature, a controversial (mostly from colleagues rejected) hypothesis, the ancestors of birds were with Crocodylomorpha (similar Sphenosuchia ) related. One of his arguments was the similarity of the auditory regions. On the Archaeopteryx Conference Eichstätt in 1984, he admitted that he might have been wrong and this could be evolutionary convergences. However, he moved in 1995 in an open letter to colleagues back. He said a significant difference in the first found single spring of Archaeopteryx which discovered the finds with skeletal remains to have. The negative reactions to this letter left him temporarily considering completely abandoning further research.

After retirement in 1983 he devoted himself to a careful analysis of Sphenosuchus acutus from South Africa (published in a major treatise in 1990 ) and the brain - cast of Archaeopteryx. Most recently, he published in 2002 on the anatomy of the brain and auditory apparatus of Stagonolepis.

Walker named 1964 Tyrannosauroidea.

In his honor, Alwalkeria is named.

Writings

  • Triassic reptiles from the Elgin area: Ornithosuchus and the origin of Carnosaurs. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 248, 1964, 53-134.
  • The reptile fauna of the ' Lower Keuper ' Sandstone, Geological Magazine 106, 1969, 470-476.
  • A revision of the Jurassic reptile Hall Opus victor ( Marsh ), with remarks on the classification of crocodiles, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 257, 1970, 323-372.
  • Michael Benton Palaeoecology, taphonomy, and dating of Permo - Triassic reptiles from Elgin, north-east Scotland, Palaeontology 28, 1985, 207-234
  • Evolution of the pelvis in birds and dinosaurs, in S. M: Andrews, RS Miles, AD Walker ( eds.) Problems in Vertebrate Evolution, Linnean Society Symposia, Series 4, 1977, 319-358
  • A revision of Sphenosuchus acutus Haughton, a crocodylomorph from the Elliott Formation (late Triassic or early Jurassic ) of South Africa, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B, 330, 1990, 1-120
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