William King Gregory

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.

Live and act

Gregory first studied from 1895 at Columbia University's School of Mines , but then switched to zoology and vertebrate paleontology at Columbia College, where he received his bachelor's degree from Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1900 and his master's degree in 1905 Received his doctorate in 1910. He remained on friendly terms with Osborn throughout his life (despite occasional scientific differences). From 1911 he was at the American Museum of Natural History , where he was curator and head of department, 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 retired from the American Museum of Natural History and 1945 from Columbia University, but remained scientifically active. Most recently, he moved all the way from New York to his summer home in Woodstock.

He undertook field studies in the Australian bush on marsupials in 1921/22, took part in an expedition to Africa to study gorillas in 1929/30 (with Henri Cashier Raven (1889-1944), James H. McGregor, Earle T. Engel), 1939 an expedition to collect fish in New Zealand and in 1925 on William Beebe's Arcturus Expedition to the Sargasso Sea.

Gregory was particularly concerned with comparative anatomy (both recent and fossil animals) and was a pioneer in the study of fossil vertebrates under the aspect of functional anatomy. He developed his own theory of evolution, in which he differentiated a habitus character (adaptation to environmental conditions) from the heritage character inherited in the course of tribal history, whereby the latter, according to his Palimpsest theory (1947), was often hidden by the habitus character (analogous to the usage old scrolls with the monks of the Middle Ages for new purposes in palimpsests ). An example is the insectivore ancestors' teeth of bats (heritage character) and the adaptation of the hands to flight (habitus character). Similar ideas were later taken up in the mosaic theory of evolution (modular evolution, mosaic evolution , in which evolution initially only affects certain parts of the body) without making reference to Gregory. Gregory also introduced Williston's law as the observation that structures that frequently occur twice are reduced in the course of evolution, for example through differentiation (transition from polyisomers to anisomers ).

At first he was particularly concerned with fossil and recent fish and early terrestrial vertebrates such as Eryops and the therapsids (early mammalian relatives). Among other things, he dealt with insectivores and primates and with the origin of marsupials and monotons . He was also considered a leading expert on mammalian tooth development and from the 1920s onwards he dealt with the development of early humans. Gregory also had an excellent reputation as a teacher and because of the museum settings he designed, and he also wrote numerous essays for larger audiences.

In 1951 his monumental magnum opus appeared on the evolution of vertebrates, Evolution Emerging , with which he took up an unfinished project by his teacher Osborn (at his suggestion) and on which he had been working since the 1930s.

Since 1925 he was a member of the American Philosophical Society . In 1927 Gregory was elected to the National Academy of Sciences , in 1931 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . It belonged to around 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 terrestrial vertebrates, GK Noble , James Paul Chapin , CL Camp . He also worked with George Gaylord Simpson on early Mongolian Cretaceous insectivores and with Walter W. Granger on fossil mammals.

Fonts (selection)

• Our Face from Fish to Man, New York, GP Putnam's Sons, 1929 (also translated into Russian), Reprint Capricorn Books 1965
• Evolution Emerging: a survey of changing patterns from primeval life to man, 2 volumes, Macmillan 1951
• The Origin and Evolution of Human Dentition, Parts I through V, Baltimore, Williams & Wilkins, 1922 (Articles first published in the Journal of Dental Research )
• A half century of Trituberculy, American Philosophical Society 1934 (development of molars)
• Man's place among the Anthropoids, Oxford, Clarendon Press 1934
• with Milo Hellman: The South African Fossil Man-Apes and the Origin of the Human Dentition. In: The Journal of the American Dental Association. Volume 26, No. 4, 1939, pp. 558-564, doi: 10.14219 / jada.archive.1939.0113
• with Henri Cashier Raven: In quest of Gorillas, The Darwin Press, New Bedford, Massachusetts 1937
• Fish skulls. A study of the evolution of natural mechanisms, Laurel, Florida, Eric Lundberg 1959
• Guide to 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 1941, The hall of the age of man (with HF Osborn and others) 1932

Web links

• Edwin H. Colbert William King Gregory , Biographical Memoirs National Academy Sciences

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Osborn called him his faithful Achates , Fidus Achates , while Gregory called his teacher Imperial Mammoth . Colbert, biography of Gregory in the National Academy's Biographical Memoirs
2. ^ Colbert, Biographical Memoirs, loc. cit.
3. ↑ after George Gaylord Simpson , quoted in Colbert, Biogr. Memoirs, loc. cit.
4. ↑ The limbs of Eryops and the origin of paired limbs from fins , Ann. New York Academy of Sciences, Volume 21, 1912, p. 192. In it he traces the origin of the limbs of tetrapods from fish fins.
5. ↑ According to his palimpsest theory related to early reptiles, Monotremes and the Palimpsest Theory , Bull. American Mus. Nat. Hist., Vol. 88, 1947, pp. 1-52
6. ↑ As early as 1907, he published Osborn's book on mammalian molars
7. ^ Member History: William K. Gregory. American Philosophical Society, accessed August 29, 2018 .