Dirk Megirian

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Dirk Megirian (born July 6, 1958 in Switzerland , † July 27, 2009 in Alcoota , Northern Territory , Australia ) was an Australian paleontologist and geologist of Swiss origin. His main research interests were the fossil mammals and reptiles from the Cenozoic period in Australia.

Live and act

Megirian graduated from Friends' School in North Hobart, Tasmania from elementary school to graduation in 1976. He then toured Australia and spent several years in the United States. In the early 1980s he studied geology at the University of Western Australia (UWA), where he was awarded the Rex T. Prider Gold Medal in 1982. This medal honors students for their outstanding research work. In the same year he graduated with the thesis The hydrogeology of North and Bibra Lakes, Perth, Western Australia with a Bachelor of Science. In 1985 Megirian joined the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery in Darwin . Soon after, he became a geologist at the Museum of Central Australia in Alice Springs . In 1997 he was with the dissertation The geology of the Carl Creek Limestone for Ph.D. from Flinders University in Adelaide , South Australia .

Megirian researched from 1985 until his death from cancer in July 2009 in various fossil sites in the Northern Territory. Here he discovered often in collaboration with Peter F. Murray the remains of extinct dasyuridae-like as Mutparacinus archibaldi , Tyarrpecinus rothi and nimbacinus richi , diprotodontidae as Kolopsis yperus and Neohelos stirtoni , bats as Icarops breviceps , crocodiles as Baru darrowi and turtles as Meiolania brevicollis . In 1998, Murray and Megirian demonstrated on the basis of skull morphology that the fossil bird Bullockornis is not, as originally assumed, a relative of the ratites (Struthioniformes), but rather belongs to the order of the geese (Anseriformes).

Dedication names

In 1997 Peter F. Murray named Thylacinus megiriani , the largest known species of thylacine from the Alcoota fossil deposit in the Northern Territory, in honor of Dirk Megirian.

literature

  • Obituary in The Friends' School Focus Newspaper. Issue 76, North Hobart, Tasmania, December 2009, p. 14

Individual evidence

  1. ^ PF Murray and D. Megirian. 1998. The skull of dromornithid birds: anatomical evidence for their relationship to Anseriformes. Records of the South Australian Museum 31 (1): 51-97
personal data
SURNAME Megirian, Dirk
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian paleontologist and geologist of Swiss origin
DATE OF BIRTH July 6, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH July 27, 2009
Place of death Alcoota , Northern Territory