Addison Emery Verrill (February 9, 1839 – December 10, 1926) was an American invertebrate zoologist, museum curator and university professor.

Life

Verrill was born on February 9, 1839 in Greenwood, Maine, the son of George Washington Verrill and Lucy (Hillborn) Verrill. As a boy he showed an early interest in natural history, building collections of rocks and minerals, plants, shells, insects and other animals. When he moved with his family to Norway, Maine at age fourteen he attended secondary school at the Norway Liberal Institute. Verrill started college in 1859 at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

and studied under

Louis Agassiz Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz ( ; ) FRS (For) FRSE (May 28, 1807 – December 14, 1873) was a Swiss-born American biologist and geologist who is recognized as a scholar of Earth's natural history. Spending his early life in Switzerland, he rec ...

. He graduated in 1862 with a B.A. He went on scientific collecting trips with Alpheus Hyatt and Nathaniel Shaler in the summer of 1860 to Trenton Point, Maine and

Mount Desert Island Mount Desert Island (MDI; french: Île des Monts Déserts) in Hancock County, Maine, Hancock County, Maine, is the largest island off the coast of Maine. With an area of it is the List of islands of the United States by area, 52nd-largest islan ...

and in the summer of 1861 to Anticosti Island and

Labrador , nickname = "The Big Land" , etymology = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 ...

. In 1864 Verrill made reports on mining, or prospective mining, properties in New Hampshire, New York, and Pennsylvania. Two years after graduation from Harvard, he accepted a position as

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

's Sheffield Scientific School first Professor of Zoology, and taught there from 1864 until his retirement in 1907. In 1861 while under the guidance of Louis Agassiz at Harvard he was sent to Washington D.C. to obtain specimens from the

Smithsonian institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

and promote friendly relations and interest between the scientific men of Washington and those of the Harvard

Museum of Comparative Zoology A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

.Verrill 1958 p. 43 Under the direction of

Spencer Fullerton Baird Spencer Fullerton Baird (; February 3, 1823 – August 19, 1887) was an American naturalist, ornithologist, ichthyologist, herpetologist, and museum curator. Baird was the first curator to be named at the Smithsonian Institution. He eventually ...

, Verrill spent almost three months working on the coral collections of the Smithsonian. The process of overhauling the collection required identifying various species, selecting type specimens and making up a set of duplicates to be sent back north to Harvard. While in Washington he became acquainted with many scientists and formed lifelong friendships with a number of them. The friendship that Verrill and Baird developed, led to the appointment of Verrill as assistant to the Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries in 1871. In this role, which he held till 1887, Verrill was responsible for marine investigations and all invertebrate collections.Verrill 1958 p. 68 The estimated several hundred thousand specimens collected between 1871 and 1887 were sent to New Haven for Verrill to sort, identify, catalogue and label. As partial compensation for his work, after the first set of type specimens was sent to the Smithsonian, he was allowed to keep the first set of duplicates as personal property. Upon retirement he sold this personal collection to the

Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History The Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University is among the oldest, largest, and most prolific university natural history museums in the world. It was founded by the philanthropist George Peabody in 1866 at the behest of his nephew Othn ...

, where they now form part of the Invertebrate Zoology collection. Between 1868–70 he was

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professor ...

of comparative anatomy and

entomology Entomology () is the scientific study of insects, a branch of zoology. In the past the term "insect" was less specific, and historically the definition of entomology would also include the study of animals in other arthropod groups, such as arach ...

in the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

. From 1860 Verrill investigated the

invertebrate Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

fauna Fauna is all of the animal life present in a particular region or time. The corresponding term for plants is ''flora'', and for fungi, it is '' funga''. Flora, fauna, funga and other forms of life are collectively referred to as ''biota''. Zoo ...

of the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

coast, with special reference to the

coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secre ...

annelid The annelids (Annelida , from Latin ', "little ring"), also known as the segmented worms, are a large phylum, with over 22,000 extant species including ragworms, earthworms, and leeches. The species exist in and have adapted to various ecol ...

s, echinoderms, and

mollusk Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is es ...

s, and became the chief authority on the living

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda ( Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, ...

s, especially the

giant squid The giant squid (''Architeuthis dux'') is a species of deep-ocean dwelling squid in the family (biology), family Architeuthidae. It can grow to a tremendous size, offering an example of deep-sea gigantism, abyssal gigantism: recent estimates ...

of the North Atlantic. His ''Report upon the Invertebrate Animals of Vineyard Sound'' (1874), with Sidney Irving Smith, whose sister he married, is a standard manual of the marine zoology of southern

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian province ...

. In later life he explored with his students the

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...

and marine animals of the Bermuda Islands. Besides many memoirs and articles on the subjects mentioned above, he published ''The Bermuda Islands'' (1903; second edition, 1907). The author published a reprint with some changes in 1903 and a 2nd edition in 1907. Verrill published more than 350 papers and monographs, and described more than 1,000 species of animals in virtually every major taxonomy group. He was a member of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1959, Yale's Peabody Museum established the Addison Emery Verrill Medal, awarded for achievement in the natural sciences.

Family

Verrill married Flora Louisa Smith in 1865. They had six children. Their son, Hyatt Verrill, became an author, illustrator and explorer.

References

Additional references

* * * *

External links

Addison Emery Verrill Archives at Yale Peabody Museum
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Verrill, Addison Emery 1839 births 1926 deaths American science writers American zoologists Teuthologists Harvard University alumni Yale University faculty People from Greenwood, Maine Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Scientists from Maine