Robert Lynn Carroll

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Robert Lynn Carroll (born May 5, 1938 in Kalamazoo , Michigan ; † April 7, 2020 in Montreal ) was a vertebrate paleontologist and a specialist in paleozoic and Mesozoic amphibians and reptiles . Carroll lived in Montreal with his wife Anna DiTuri and their son.

Life

Robert Lynn Carroll grew up as an only child on a farm near Lansing , the capital of the US state of Michigan. His father introduced him to paleontology shortly after his fifth birthday , and by the age of eight he had already decided to become a vertebrate paleontologist. That same year he was given the left thigh bone of an Allosaurus , a large predatory dinosaur, donated by the paleontologist Edwin H. Colbert after Father Carroll had told him about his son and his interest in fossils . Allosaurus had been discovered a short time earlier in 1942 by Colbert in Wyoming . As a teenager, Robert Caroll accompanied his parents on many fossil-collecting trips in Wyoming and South Dakota .

After graduating from high school , he went to Michigan State University for a BSc in geology . He then studied biology and paleontology at Harvard University under Alfred Sherwood Romer . His doctoral thesis dealt with the paleozoic amphibian group of Dissorophidae .

Carroll was a professor of biology at McGill University and the author or co-author of a large number of scientific publications on fossil vertebrates, as well as some monographs , books on more general subjects, and textbooks .

His research areas included the origin of terrestrial vertebrates, the formation and early evolutionary radiation of the amniotes , the formation of the group of Lissamphibia and the relationships between their members, and the anatomy and evolutionary connections of Paleozoic and Mesozoic amphibians and reptiles. In addition, he dealt with large-scale patterns and processes of vertebrate evolution and tried to gain knowledge of control factors that control the processes and speed of evolution by analyzing Mesozoic marine reptiles.

In 1978 Caroll received the Charles Schuchert Award from the Paleontological Society . In 2001 he became an honorary member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology , which awarded him the Romer-Simpson Medal in 2004 .

Carroll was a citizen of both Canada and the United States.

He died in Montreal in April 2020 at the age of 81 of complications from a COVID-19 illness.

Works

  • 1988: Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. WH Freeman and Co., New York. ( Paleontology and evolution of vertebrates , Thieme, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-13-774401-6 )
  • 1989: Paleontology: The Record of Life. John Wiley and Sons, New York (with C. Stearn)
  • 1997: Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
  • 1998: Lepospondyli. In: P. Wellnhofer (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Paleoherpetology. Dr. Friedrich Pfeil, Munich. (with KA Bossy, AC Milner, SM Andrews, and CF Wellstead)
  • 2000: Amphibian Biology, Volume 4: Paleontology. The Evolutionary History of Amphibians. Surrey Beatty & Sons (as editor with Harold Heatwole)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Robert Lynn Carroll (Bob). In: Montreal Gazette. Retrieved April 18, 2020 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Carroll, Robert Lynn
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American vertebrate paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH May 5, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Kalamazoo , Michigan
DATE OF DEATH April 7, 2020
Place of death Montreal