Elisabeth S. Vrba (May 27, 1942 – February 5, 2025) was an American

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

who developed the turnover-pulse hypothesis.

Background

Vrba was born in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, Germany. In 1944, following the death of her father, she moved with her family to a sheep farm in

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

. She earned her Ph.D. in Zoology and Palaeontology at the

University of Cape Town The University of Cape Town (UCT) (, ) is a public university, public research university in Cape Town, South Africa. Established in 1829 as the South African College, it was granted full university status in 1918, making it the oldest univer ...

, in 1974. Vrba studied zoology and mathematical statistics at the University of Cape Town to earn her undergraduate degree. She remained there for doctoral study in zoology and paleontology to earn her Ph.D. After receiving her doctorate, Vrba conducted her early research on African fossil records over the last several million years, tracking the sequence of fossils from analyzing the geological strata and analyzing the morphology of the fossils. She was the chief assistant to

Charles Kimberlin Brain Charles Kimberlin Brain (7 May 1931 – 6 June 2023), also known as C. K. "Bob" Brain, was a South African paleontologist who studied and taught African cave taphonomy for more than fifty years. Biography Brain was born in Salisbury, Southern ...

during his directorship of the

Transvaal Museum The Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, formerly the Transvaal Museum, is a natural history museum situated in Pretoria, South Africa. It is located on Paul Kruger Street, between Visagie and Minnaar Streets, opposite the Pretoria City ...

. Vrba died in

New Haven New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Co ...

Connecticut Connecticut ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. ...

, on February 5, 2025, at the age of 82.

Career

Vrba was appointed a professor at the Department of Geology & Geophysics,

, in 1986 and retired in 2014. She is well known for developing the turnover-pulse hypothesis, as well as coining the word

exaptation Exaptation or co-option is a shift in the function of a trait during evolution. For example, a trait can evolve because it served one particular function, but subsequently it may come to serve another. Exaptations are common in both anatomy and be ...

with colleague

Stephen Jay Gould Stephen Jay Gould ( ; September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American Paleontology, paleontologist, Evolutionary biology, evolutionary biologist, and History of science, historian of science. He was one of the most influential and widely re ...

. Her specific interest was in the Family Bovidae (

antelope The term antelope refers to numerous extant or recently extinct species of the ruminant artiodactyl family Bovidae that are indigenous to most of Africa, India, the Middle East, Central Asia, and a small area of Eastern Europe. Antelopes do ...

s, etc.), but her students studied a wide range of species.

Innovations

Vrba and colleague

are renowned for having proposed the term ''

''. Vrba and Gould's research suggested that the historical origin of a genetic or morphological trait is not always reflective of its contemporary function — genesis and current function should not be conflated. Genetic or morphological adaptations may take on new functions and may serve a species a different purpose further on in evolution. Gould died in 2002, but their coined term has been widely referenced in recent years in popular science writing. Vrba and Gould's idea of exaptation has also been criticized in recent years by scholars who assert that genetic traits are pressured by multiple factors, making it challenging to determine when adaptation or exaptation is at play. Vrba also constructed the Turnover-pulse hypothesis, a significant addition to

macroevolution Macroevolution comprises the evolutionary processes and patterns which occur at and above the species level. In contrast, microevolution is evolution occurring within the population(s) of a single species. In other words, microevolution is the ...

ary theory.

Selected publications

* Gould, S. J. and E. S. Vrba. (1982)
"Exaptation—a missing term in the science of form."
''Paleobiology'' 8: 4-15. *Katherine MacInnes. "Evolving Vocabulary: the rise and fall of 'exaptation'" ''International Innovation'', September 18, 2015
https://web.archive.org/web/20160825224345/http://www.internationalinnovation.com/evolving-vocabulary-the-rise-and-fall-of-exaptation/.
*Lewis, R. "Surveying the Genomic Landscape of Modern Mammals," DNA Science Blog, January 29, 2015
http://blogs.plos.org/dnascience/2015/01/29/probing-genomic-landscape-modern-mammals/.
*Michael Garfield. "Exaptation of the Guitar" ''Guitar International'', September 17, 2010
https://web.archive.org/web/20130622042448/http://guitarinternational.com/2010/09/17/exaptation-of-the-guitar/.
*Rozzi, Roberto. "Elisabeth Vrba , TrowelBlazers." ''trowelblazers.com''. 2014. Accessed October 17, 2015. http://trowelblazers.com/elisabeth-vrba/. *Shapiro, J. "More Evidence on the Real Nature of Evolutionary DNA Change," ''Huffington Post, The Blog'', June 1, 2012

*Shell, E. R. (1999). ttps://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/waves-of-creation "Waves of Creation."''Discover'' 14 (May): 54-61. *Vrba, E. S. and Gould, S. J. (1986)
"The hierarchical expansion of sorting and selection."
''Paleobiology''. 12 (2): 217-228. *Vrba, E. S. (1993)

''Natural History'' 102 (5) 47-51.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vrba, Elisabeth 1942 births 2025 deaths American paleontologists Paleozoologists American women paleontologists American taxonomists Women taxonomists Yale University faculty University of Cape Town alumni 20th-century American zoologists 21st-century American zoologists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists American women academics