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Alfred Sherwood Romer (December 28, 1894 - November 5, 1973) was an American paleontologist and comparative anatomist and a specialist in vertebrate
Vertebrate

Vertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata, chordates with Vertebras or Vertebral columns. The grouping sometimes includes the hagfish, which have no vertebrae, but are genetically quite closely related to lampreys, which do have vertebrae....
 evolution
Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
.

ed Romer was born in White Plains
White Plains, New York

The City of White Plains is the county seat of Westchester County, New York. It is located in south-central Westchester, about east of the Hudson River and northwest of Long Island Sound....
, New York, and studied at Amherst College
Amherst College

Amherst College is a private university Liberal arts colleges in the United States in Amherst, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821, it is the third oldest college in List of colleges and universities in Massachusetts, and has been coeducational since 1975....
 and Columbia University
Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York , is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights, Manhattan neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City....
. Romer joined the department of geology and paleontology at the University of Chicago as an associate professor in 1923. He was an active researcher and teacher.






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Alfred Sherwood Romer (December 28, 1894 - November 5, 1973) was an American paleontologist and comparative anatomist and a specialist in vertebrate
Vertebrate

Vertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata, chordates with Vertebras or Vertebral columns. The grouping sometimes includes the hagfish, which have no vertebrae, but are genetically quite closely related to lampreys, which do have vertebrae....
 evolution
Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
.

Biography

Alfred Romer was born in White Plains
White Plains, New York

The City of White Plains is the county seat of Westchester County, New York. It is located in south-central Westchester, about east of the Hudson River and northwest of Long Island Sound....
, New York, and studied at Amherst College
Amherst College

Amherst College is a private university Liberal arts colleges in the United States in Amherst, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821, it is the third oldest college in List of colleges and universities in Massachusetts, and has been coeducational since 1975....
 and Columbia University
Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York , is a private university in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Columbia's main campus lies in the Morningside Heights, Manhattan neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, in New York City....
. Romer joined the department of geology and paleontology at the University of Chicago as an associate professor in 1923. He was an active researcher and teacher. His collecting program added important Paleozoic specimens to the Walker Museum of Paleontology. In 1934 he was appointed professor of biology
Biology

Biology is a branch of the natural sciences concerned with the study of living organisms and their interaction with each other and their environment ....
 at Harvard University
Harvard University

Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher learning in the United States....
. In 1946, he also became director of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology
Museum of Comparative Zoology

The Museum of Comparative Zoology, full name "The Louis Agassiz Museum of Comparative Zoology", often abbreviated simply to "MCZ", is a zoology museum located on the grounds of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts....
.

Evolutionary research

Romer was very keen in investigating vertebrate evolution. Comparing facts from paleontology
Paleontology

File:Geological time spiral - sharper.pngPaleontology from Greek: pa?a??? "old, ancient", ??, ??t- "being, creature", and ????? "speech, thought" is the study of prehistory life, including organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments ....
, comparative anatomy
Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology that is the consideration of the body plan. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy and plant anatomy ....
, and embryology
Embryology

Embryology is the study of the development of an embryo. An embryo is defined as any organism in a stage before birth or hatching, or in plants, before germination occurs....
, he taught the basic structural and functional changes that happened during the evolution
Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
 of fish
Fish

A fish is any marine biology vertebrate animal that is typically ectothermic , covered with scale , and equipped with two sets of paired fins and several unpaired fins....
es to primitive terrestrial vertebrate
Vertebrate

Vertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata, chordates with Vertebras or Vertebral columns. The grouping sometimes includes the hagfish, which have no vertebrae, but are genetically quite closely related to lampreys, which do have vertebrae....
s and from these to all other tetrapod
Tetrapod

Tetrapods are vertebrate animals having four feet, legs or leglike appendages. Amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs/birds, and mammals are all tetrapods, and even the limbless snakes are tetrapods by descent....
s. He always emphasized the evolutionary significance of the relationship between the form and function of animals and the environment.

Namesake

In July 2007 a species of pre-dinosaur or dinosauromorph was named Dromomeron romeri: "the first part meaning 'running femur,' the latter in honor of paleontologist Alfred Sherwood Romer, a key figure in evolution research." The finding of these fossils was hailed as a breakthrough proving dinosaurs and dinosauromorphs "lived together for as long as 15 million to 20 million years."

Books

  • Romer, A.S. 1933. Vertebrate Paleontology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. (2nd ed. 1945; 3rd ed. 1966)
  • Romer, A.S. 1933. Man and the Vertebrates. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. (2nd ed. 1937; 3rd ed. 1941; 4th ed., retitled The Vertebrate Story, 1949)
  • Romer, A.S. 1949. The Vertebrate Body. W.B. Saunders, Philadelphia. (2nd ed. 1955; 3rd ed. 1962; 4th ed. 1970)
  • Romer, A.S. 1949. The Vertebrate Story. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. (4th ed. of Man and the Vertebrates)
  • Romer, A.S. 1956. Osteology of the Reptiles. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
  • Romer, A.S. 1968. Notes and Comments on Vertebrate Paleontology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
  • Romer, A.S. & T.S. Parsons. 1977. The Vertebrate Body. 5th ed. Saunders, Philadelphia. (6th ed. 1985)


Sources



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