Alan Feduccia

Alan Feduccia ( born April 25, 1943 in Mobile, Alabama) is an American ornithologist and paleontologist ( Paläornithologie ), which deals with the evolution of birds.

Feduccia studied zoology at Louisiana State University with a bachelor's degree in 1965 and at the University of Michigan with a Ph.D. in zoology in 1969. Afterwards, he was Assistant Professor at Southern Methodist University in 1971 and an assistant professor in 1979 and professor of biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 1978-1987 he was a Research Associate at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution.

He first studied especially the evolution of modern bird taxa in the Tertiary, where he accounted for the accelerated development and diversification of modern birds after the extinction of the dinosaurs at the turn of Cretaceous / Tertiary, probably from a small group of survivors at coast birds ( in the ecological niche today plover ).

He disagreed (for example, in his book Origin and Evolution of Birds ) to the usual view that birds descended from theropods, but was of the opinion that they branched off earlier in the tribal line at basal archosaurs. Regarding Archaeopteryx he took the view that he would be assigned to the birds and capable of active flight, which he identified in the asymmetric feather structure and the strong leg among others. The springs are in his opinion, clearly aerodynamic purposes and not simply the maintenance of body temperature. The recent discovery of feathered dinosaurs in China and Mongolia, he holds partly for regressions of birds towards theropod -like lifestyle. He also published a book in 2012.

For Origin and Evolution of Birds, the Association of American Publishers Award for Excellence awarded in Biological Sciences in 1996. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Ornithologists' Union.

A bird genus Feducciavis was named after him in 2011 and the extinct bird from China Conficiusornis feducciai 2009.

Writings

• The age of birds, Harvard University Press 1980 German Translation: It all started in the Jurassic sea - the fascinating story of the birds, Hildesheim: Gerstenberg, 1984