Alan Feduccia

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Alan Feduccia (born April 25, 1943 in Mobile , Alabama) is an American ornithologist and paleontologist ( paleornithology ) who studies 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 doctorate in zoology in 1969. He was then an assistant professor at Southern Methodist University and from 1971 assistant professor and from 1979 professor of biology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill . From 1978 to 1987 he was also a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History .

He initially examined the evolution of modern bird taxa in the Tertiary, where he identified an accelerated development and diversification of modern birds after the extinction of the dinosaurs at the turn of the Cretaceous / Tertiary, probably from a small group of birds surviving on coastal strips (in the ecological Niche of today's plover).

He contradicted (for example in his book Origin and Evolution of Birds ) the usual view that birds descended from theropods , but held that they branched off in the lineage earlier in basal archosaurs . With regard to Archeopteryx , he took the view that he could be assigned to birds and capable of active flight, which he made out, among other things, in the asymmetrical spring structure and the strong wishbone. In his opinion, the springs are clearly used for aerodynamic purposes and not simply to maintain body temperature. He considers the new discovery of feathered dinosaurs in China and Mongolia to be partly due to the regression of birds towards a theropod-like way of life. He published a book about it in 2012.

For Origin and Evolution of Birds received the Association of American Publishers Prize for Excellence in Biological Sciences 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 Confuciusornis feducciai in 2009.

Fonts

  • The age of birds. Harvard University Press 1980.
    • German translation: It started in the Jurassic Sea. The fascinating story of birds. Gerstenberg, Hildesheim 1984.
  • The origin and evolution of birds. Yale University Press, 2nd edition 1993.
  • Riddle of the feathered dragons: hidden birds of China. Yale University Press 2012.
  • Structure and evolution of vertebrates. Norton 1975.
  • with Theodore W. Torrey: Morphogenesis of the Vertebrates. Wiley 1979, 1991.
  • Bird origins anew. The Auk. January 2013, pdf .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
personal data
SURNAME Feduccia, Alan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American ornithologist and paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Mobile, Alabama