Erik Jarvik, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Erik Jarvik

paleontologist

Date of Birth: 30-Nov-1907

Place of Birth: Utby socken, Västra Götaland County, Sweden

Date of Death: 11-Jan-1998

Profession: zoologist, paleontologist, ichthyologist

Nationality: Sweden

Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius

Anders Erik Vilhelm Jarvik (30 November 1907 – January 11, 1998) was a Swedish paleontologist 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.