Addison Emery VerrillDied 10 Dec 1926 at age 87 (born 9 Feb 1839).American zoologist and naturalist who, ascuratorof zoology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, developed one of the largest, most valuable zoological collections in the U.S. He trained under Louis Agassiz at Harvard University. At age 25, Verrill, became Yale University's first professor of Zoology. His lifelong devotion to taxonomic research resulted in the initial development of extensive collections at Yale in a wide variety of taxa. From 1871-87, while he was in charge of scientific explorations by the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Verrill found and described hundreds of new marine specimens. He specialized in invertebrates, especially worms, mollusks, corals, sponges, and starfishes, and made important technical improvements in the equipment used for collecting specimens. His expeditions took him to the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America and to Hawaii and Central America. He published more than 350 papers and monographs, including descriptions of more than a thousand species of animals in virtually every major taxon. His breadth of interests included parasitology, mineralogy and botany. |
