William King Gregory

William King Gregory ( born May 19, 1876 in Greenwich Village, † December 29, 1970 in Woodstock ) was an American zoologist and vertebrate paleontologist.

Gregory studied from 1895 at the Mining Academy ( School of Mines ), Columbia University, but then switched to zoology and vertebrate paleontology to the Columbia College, where he earned his 1900 earned his bachelor 's degree and in 1905 his master's degree at Henry Fairfield Osborn and in 1910 received his doctorate. With Osborn he remained on friendly terms throughout life ( despite occasional scientific differences). From 1911 he worked at the American Museum of Natural History, where he was curator and department head, and taught from 1916 at Columbia University, where he was Professor of Zoology ( Da Costa Professor ). At the museum, he was simultaneously in three departments: Ichthyology (which he also directed ), Vertebrate Paleontology and Comparative Anatomy, where he founded and directed the latter department. In 1944 he went to the American Museum of Natural History and 1945 at Columbia University to retire, but remained scientifically active. Most recently, he drew all of New York in his summer home in Woodstock.

He made 1921/22, field studies in the Australian bush about marsupials, took 1929/30, in an expedition to Africa to study gorillas in part (Henri Cashier Raven ( 1889-1944 ), James H. McGregor, Earle T. Engel), 1939 an expedition to collect fish to New Zealand and in 1925 at the Arcturus expedition by William Beebe in the Sargasso Sea.

Gregory dealt particularly with comparative anatomy ( both extant and fossil animals) and was a pioneer in the study of fossil vertebrates in terms of functional anatomy. He developed his own theory of evolution, in which it a habit character ( adaptation to environmental conditions ) from Heritage character, and in the course of phylogeny inherited, difference, the latter after his palimpsest theory (1947 ) was often obscured by the habit - character (analogous to the use old scrolls with the monks of the Middle Ages for new purposes in palimpsests ). An example is the product derived from insect -eating ancestors teeth of bats (Heritage - character ) and the adaptation of the hands on the flight ( habitus character). Similar ideas were later taken up in the mosaic theory of evolution ( Modular Evolution, Mosaic evolution in the evolution of initially applies only to certain parts of the body ), without referring to Gregory reference. Gregory also led Willistons law as an observation that can be reduced with often duplicate structures in the course of evolution, for example, by differentiating (transition from Polyisomeren to Anisomeren ).

At first he was concerned particularly with fossil and recent fishes and early land vertebrates such Eryops and the therapsids (early mammalian relatives). He has worked, amongst other things, with insectivores and primates and the origin of marsupials and monotremes. In addition, he was considered a leading expert on tooth development in mammals and in the 1920s he worked on the development of early man. Gregory also had an excellent reputation as a teacher, and because of he designed museum settings, and he also wrote numerous articles for wider audiences.

In 1951 his monumental magnum opus about the evolution of vertebrate evolution emerging, with whom he took up an unfinished project of his teacher Osborn (on whose suggestion ), and on which he worked since the 1930s.

In 1927 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and was a member of 30 scientific societies. He was twice president of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, whose Viking Medal he received in 1949.

His students include Alfred Romer, with whom he also worked on early land vertebrates, GK Noble, James Paul Chapin, CL Camp. He also worked with George Gaylord Simpson on early insectivores from the Cretaceous of Mongolia and Walter Granger on fossil mammals.

Writings

  • Our Face from Fish to Man, New York, GP Putnam's Sons, 1929 ( translated into Russian ), Reprint Capricorn Books 1965
  • Evolution emerging: a survey of changing patterns from primeval life to man, 2 vols, Macmillan 1951
  • The Origin and Evolution of Human Dentition, Part I to V, Baltimore, Williams & Wilkins, 1922 ( essays that first appeared in the Journal of Dental Research )
  • A half century of Trituberculy, American Philosophical Society in 1934 (developing molars )
  • Man's place among the Anthropoids, Oxford, Clarendon Press 1934
  • With Henri Cashier Raven: In quest of gorillas, The Darwin Press, New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1937
  • Fish skulls. A study of the evolution of natural mechanisms, Laurel, Florida, Eric Lundberg 1959
  • Leader of the American Museum of Natural History: The world of fishes ( with F. LaMonte ) 1934, 1947, Introduction to human anatomy ( with Roigneau, Raven 1934, 1942), Family tree of the vertrebrates - grandfather fish and its descendants in 1941, The hall of the age of man ( with HF Osborn and others) 1932
Woodstock (New York) Gladwyn Kingsley Noble Walter W. Granger Achates Name Authority File
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