Addison Emery Verrill

Addison Emery Verrill (February 9, 1839 – December 10, 1926) was an American zoologist (specializing in marine invertebrates), professor of zoology at Yale University, and curator at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. He was elected in 1872 a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences.

Quotes

• The early literature of natural history has, from very remote times, contained allusions to huge species of Cephalopods, often accompanied by more or less fabulous and usually exaggerated descriptions of the creatures ... In a few instances figures were attempted which were largely indebted to the imagination of their authors for their more striking peculiarities.
  In recent times, many more accurate observers have confirmed the existence of such monsters, and several fragments have found their way into European museums.
  To Professor Steenstrup and to Dr. Harting, however, belongs the credit of first describing and figuring, in a scientific manner, a number of fragments sufficient to give some idea of the real character and affinities of these colossal species.
  • Report on the cephalopods of the northeastern coast of America. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1882.  (reprinted from Report of the Commissioner for 1879. United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries)

• The following catalogue is intended to include all the Mollusca now known to inhabit the New England region that are not included in Binney's edition of Gould's Invertebrata of Massachusetts, published in 1870.
  In the "New England Region" I include, on the north, the coasts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and their outlying banks; while on the south, I include the entire region, about 100 to 120 miles wide, between the shore and the Gulf Stream, off the southern coast of New England, and embracing all depths down to 600 fathoms. ... I have also included the free-swimming and floating forms, ordinarily inhabiting the same region, which may be considered as meeting and including the innermost edge of the Gulf Stream in summer, but most of these surface forms are usually to be found, in summer, far inside the actual limits of the Gulf Stream. The Grand Banks of Newfoundland and the northern parts of the Gulf of St. Lawrence I have considered as extra-limital, for my present purposes. Those localities are inhabited by an extremely arctic fauna, including many species of mollusca that have not yet been found farther south. Among these are several species of Buccinum and allied genera.
  • (1882)"Article VI. Catalogue of marine Mollusca added to the fauna of New England during the past ten years". Transactions of the Connecticut Academy, New Haven volume V, Part 2: 447–587. (quote from p. 447)

• On the first trip of the “Albatross” from Wood’s Holl, which was made July 16 to 19, four successful hauls were made with a large trawl, in 1,346 to 1,735 fathoms, on the 17th and 18th of July, two each day, besides the soundings and temperature determinations, including series of temperatures at various distances from the surface. On this trip about one hundred and five species of Invertebrates were obtained, not including the Foraminifera and other minute forms. There were among them fourteen species of Anthozoa; two of Hydroids; twenty-two of Echinoderms; thirty-eight of Mollusca; fifteen of Crustacea; one of Pycnogonida; ten of Annelida; one of Bryozoa; two of Sponges.
  • "Article XVI.—Results of the explorations made by the steamer Albatross off the northern coast of the United States in 1883 by A. E. Verrill with 44 plates". Report of the Commissioner for 1883. United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1885. pp. 503–601.  (quote from p. 508)

Quotes about Addison Emery Verrill

• Among these pioneer zoologists the name of Verrill stands out prominently because of the amount and accuracy of his contributions to our knowledge of marine invertebrates. More than a thousand species, including representatives of nearly all groups, were discovered and described by him, and their relationships to previously known forms were diagnosed with almost unerring accuracy and with a facility that amounted almost to genius.
  He was much more than systematic zoologist, however; he was a real naturalist in that he was always interested in the natural history of the animals which he studied as well as the morphological characters which distinguished the species new to science. His work on the natural history of he marine invertebrates of southern New England was the first extensive ecological study of its kind in America, and his Vineyard Sound report (published in 1871) was the standard reference book for all students of the seashore life of the region for more than thirty years.
  • Wesley Roswell Coe, (1927). "Addison Emery Verrill: Pioneer Zoologist". Science 66 (1697): 28–29. DOI:10.1126/science.66.1697.28. (The 1871 Report upon the invertebrate animals of Vineyard sound and adjacent waters, with an account of the physical features of the region was coauthored by Verrill and Sidney Irving Smith.)

External links

• Data related to Addison Emery Verrill on Wikispecies
• Addison Emery Verrill. Friends of Outer Island.