Erik Jarvik
Anders Erik Vilhelm Jarvik (30 November 1907 – January 11, 1998) was a Swedish palaeozoologist who worked extensively on the sarcopterygian (or lobe-finned) fish Eusthenopteron. In a career that spanned some 60 years, Jarvik produced some of the most detailed anatomical work on this fish, making it arguably the best known fossil vertebrate.
Jarvik was born at a farm in Utby Parish near Mariestad in northern Västergötland. He studied botany, zoology, geology, and paleontology at Uppsala University, where he took his licentiate's degree in 1937. In 1942, he completed his PhD with the dissertation On the structure of the snout of Crossopterygians and lower Gnathostomes in general. He participated in the Greenland expedition of Gunnar Säve-Söderbergh in 1932 and was appointed assistant in the Department of Palaeozoology of the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm in 1937; he eventually succeeded Erik Stensiö as professor and head of the department in 1960, retiring in 1972.
Read more about Erik Jarvik: Research, Work On Eusthenopteron, Theories On Amphibian Phylogeny, Lungfish Phylogeny, Legacy
Famous quotes containing the word erik:
“Young people of high school age can actually feel themselves changing. Progress is almost tangible. It’s exciting. It stimulates more progress. Nevertheless, growth is not constant and smooth. Erik Erikson quotes an aphorism to describe the formless forming of it. “I ain’t what I ought to be. I ain’t what I’m going to be, but I’m not what I was.””
—Stella Chess (20th century)