10 Facts About Alfred Romer

Alfred Sherwood Romer was an American paleontologist and biologist and a specialist in vertebrate evolution.

Alfred Romer was born in White Plains, New York, the son of Harry Houston Romer and his wife, Evalyn Sherwood.

Alfred Romer's collecting program added important Paleozoic specimens to Chicago's Walker Museum of Paleontology.

Alfred Romer was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1937.

In 1954 Alfred Romer was awarded the Mary Clark Thompson Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, of which he was a member.

Alfred Romer was awarded the academy's Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal in 1956.

In 1961, Alfred Romer received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

Alfred Romer always emphasized the evolutionary significance of the relationship between form and function of animals and their environment.

Alfred Romer drew together the then widely scattered taxonomy of the different vertebrate groups and combined them into a single scheme, emphasizing orderliness and overview.

Alfred Romer was the first to recognise the gap in the fossil record between the tetrapods of the Devonian and the later Carboniferous period, a gap that has borne the name Alfred Romer's gap since 1995.