Leonard B. Radinsky

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Leonard Burton Radinsky (born July 16, 1937 in Staten Island , † August 30, 1985 in Chicago ) was an American vertebrate paleontologist and geologist .

Life

Radinsky was born to Russian-Polish immigrants and grew up in the United States of America . He has been interested in fossil animals since childhood . He received his bachelor's degree in geology from Cornell University in 1958. He received his doctorate in paleontology from Yale University in 1962 , his work dealt with the Eocene and Oligocene relatives and ancestors of today's tapirs , the Tapiroidea of North America. Until 1963 Radinsky spent an academic year at the American Museum of Natural History in New York , where he was also able to study the Asian fossils of this odd ungulate group . He then accepted a position at the Department of Biology at Boston University and also became a research associate at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology . From 1964 he held a junior professorship at Brooklyn College in New York for three years , during which he continued his research on the early odd-toed ungulates. In 1967 Radinsky went to the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Chicago , where he also initially accepted a junior professorship from 1970, and later a full professorship from 1976. From 1978 on, he was also head of the institute, a position he held until 1983. Leonard Burton Radinsky died at the age of 48 after long-term cancer .

Research focus

Radinsky's main area of ​​research was the extinct odd-toed ungulates , with which he was concerned throughout his life; his main interest was in the most original forms. In total, his area of ​​work included three main areas of focus. The starting point of his research was the fossil relatives of the tapirs. Here he introduced, among other things, several new genera , such as the forms Palaeomoropus (1964) and Selenaletes (1966) from the early Eocene of North America, and he also described the complete skeleton of Heptodon , also an early Heocene representative of the Tapiroidea and was able to make a comparison to recent representatives of the tapirs to work out the very primeval structure of this group of animals. Another point of research included the systematics of the earliest Chalicotheriidae and their relatives, whereby he was able to prove a very early origin of this group with Lophiaspis from the Middle Eocene, which went back as far as the tapirs and horses . Ultimately, a third and major focus was on the rhinoceros-like ( Rhinocerotoidea ). In 1966, Radinsky succeeded in establishing a coherent structure of families and subfamilies, which is still in place today. The structure was largely based on tooth characteristics and led to the fact that, among other things, the Indricotheria (today the Indricotheriidae family ) were excluded from the rhinoceros group (Rhinocerotidae) due to a differently built front dentition and incorporated into those of the Hyracodontidae . This also includes the discussed position of Hyrachyus at the base of the Ceratomorpha, the common group of rhinos and tapirs.

In addition to the odd-toed ungulate, Radinsky also dealt extensively with the evolution of the mammalian brain . This work began while he was working at Brooklyn College and he continued it until his death. One focus was initially the development of the brain size in predators and primates , but later also in horses and extinct South American ungulates. During his research, Radinsky developed a method for endocranial casts, and he also created a way of better determining the size of the brain in fossil mammals by using the foramen magnum as a reference.

Honor

Malcolm McKenna and his research colleagues honored Radinsky for his research on the early odd-toed ungulates and his extensive knowledge of this group of mammals by naming the very primitive genus Radinskya from the Upper Paleocene .

Fonts (selection)

  • Origin and early evolution of North American Tapiroidea. In: Yale Peabody Museum Bulletin 17, 1963, pp. 1-106.
  • Evolution of the tapiroid skeleton from Heptodon to Tapirus. In: Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard 134, 1965, pp. 69-106.
  • The families of Rhinocerotoidea (Mammalia, Perissodactyla). In: Journal of Mammalogy 47, 1966, pp. 631-639.
  • Review of the rhinocerotoid family Hyracodontidae. In: Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 136, 1967, pp. 1-46.
  • A new approach to mammalian cranial analysis, illustrated by examples of prosimian primates. In: Journal of Morphology 124, 1968, pp. 167-180.
  • Evolution of the felid brain. In: Brain, Behavior, and Evolution 11, 1975, pp. 214-254.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c James A. Hopson: Leonard Burton Radinsky (1937–1985). In: Donald R. Prothero and Robert M. Schoch (Eds.): The evolution of perissodactyls. New York and London 1989, pp. 2-12.
  2. ↑ Malcolm C. McKenna, Chow Minchen, Ting Suyin and Luo Zhexi: Radinskya yupingae, a Perissodactyl-like mammal from the Late Palaeocene of China. In: Donald R. Prothero and Robert M. Schoch (Eds.): The evolution of perissodactyls. New York and London 1989, pp. 24-36.
personal data
SURNAME Radinsky, Leonard B.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Radinsky, Leonard Burton (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH July 16, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Staten Island
DATE OF DEATH August 30, 1985
Place of death Chicago