Judith Van Couvering
Judith Anne Van Couvering (born February 20, 1938 in Tulsa , Oklahoma , USA ; † August 13, 2019 ) was an American paleoecologist and professor at the University of Colorado Boulder . Her specialty was the tribal history of the African cichlids . In collaboration with her temporary husband John Van Couvering, she also published professional articles in the field of paleoanthropology , some of them under her maiden name Judith Anne Harris.
Life
Judith Anne Van Couvering holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in paleontology from the University of California, Berkeley and a doctorate in 1972 on fossil cichlids from the Department of Geology at the University of Cambridge , England . For decades, her studies were located in the deposits on Rusinga Island , an island in Lake Victoria that belongs to Kenya . Among other things, she discovered five new fossil cichlid species there and described them in her dissertation. The beginnings of her research were encouraged and financially supported by Louis Leakey in particular .
Together with geologist John Van Couvering, who had dated the sediments of the fossil deposits on Rusinga Island in the early 1970s , she also devoted herself to the numerous finds of fossil land vertebrates on Rusinga Island and later also to research into the fossil mammal fauna of Fayyum in Egypt . After her retirement, she worked on a textbook that is to be completed by Kenneth Carpenter and published posthumously under the title Principles of Continental Paleoecology .
In addition to her professorship at the University of Colorado, she was a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History . Her and her husband in honor was the type species of primate - genus Nyanzapithecus , Nyanzapithecus vancouveringi named. She died after a long illness at the age of 81, leaving behind her wife Mary Ann Ziob, her former husband John Van Couvering and four children with him.
Fonts (selection)
- as co-author: The Miocene fossil beds of Maboko Island, Kenya: Geology, age, taphonomy and palaeontology. In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 10, No. 1, 1981, pp. 35-48, doi: 10.1016 / S0047-2484 (81) 80024-3 .
- Fossil cichlid fish of Africa. In: Palaeontological Association (Ed.): Special Papers in Palaeontology. Volume 29, 1982, pp. 1-103. ISBN 978-0-901702-24-1 .
- with John Van Couvering: Late Eocene age of Fayum mammal faunas. In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 21, No. 4, 1991, pp. 241-260, doi: 10.1016 / 0047-2484 (91) 90106-6 .
- Ecosystem structure and growth of the African savanna. In: Global and Planetary Change. Volume 8, No. 4, 1993, pp. 231-248, doi: 10.1016 / 0921-8181 (93) 90011-C .
- with John Van Couvering: Mock aridity and the paleoecology of volcanically influenced ecosystems. In: Geology. Volume 23, No. 7, 1995, pp. 593-596, doi : 10.1130 / 0091-7613 (1995) 023 <0593: MAATPO> 2.3.CO; 2 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Peter Andrews : Judith Van Couvering, née Harris (1938-2019). In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 143, 2020, p. 102783, doi: 10.1016 / j.jhevol.2020.102783 .
- ^ Judith Anne Harris Van Couvering: Palaeontology and comparative osteology of some African cichlid fishes. Diss. (PH.D.), University of Cambridge, Cambridge 1972, doi: 10.17863 / CAM.31131 .
- ^ Judith Harris, Emeritus Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology. On: colorado.edu/cumuseum , last viewed on May 10, 2020.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Van Couvering, Judith |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Van Couvering, Judith Anne; Harris, Judith Anne |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American paleoecologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 20, 1938 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Tulsa , Oklahoma , United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | 13th August 2019 |