Best Invertebrates

Geerat Vermeij is a Dutch-American paleobiologist and evolutionary biologist whose research focuses on marine mollusks. He is known for developing the escalation hypothesis, which proposes that evolutionary adaptations in marine organisms are largely driven by predator-prey interactions. Despite bei...

David Jablonski is an American paleontologist and evolutionary biologist known for his extensive research on the fossil record of marine invertebrates. As a professor at the University of Chicago, his work focuses on macroevolution, examining the large-scale patterns of biodiversity, extinction, and...

Susan Kidwell is an American paleontologist and taphonomist recognized for her foundational work in understanding how biological remains become fossilized. As a professor at the University of Chicago, her research analyzes marine death assemblages—the accumulated shells and bones on the ocean floor—...

Mike Foote is an American paleobiologist and professor known for his quantitative research on the history of life and the fossil record. Much of his work involves using large-scale databases to analyze trends in biodiversity, evolutionary rates, and extinction across the Phanerozoic eon. He has publ...

Mary Droser is an American paleontologist and a professor at the University of California, Riverside, specializing in invertebrate paleontology and paleoecology. She is widely recognized for her extensive field research on Ediacaran fossils, particularly in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia. He...

Michael Foote is an American paleontologist and a professor at the University of Chicago, known for his contributions to the field of evolutionary paleobiology. His research heavily relies on quantitative and statistical methods to analyze large-scale patterns in the fossil record. He focuses on ana...

James Valentine was a prominent American evolutionary paleontologist whose research significantly advanced the understanding of marine diversity and the fossil record. He is particularly recognized for his extensive work on the evolutionary significance of the Cambrian explosion, detailing how compl...

Rachel Wood is a British paleontologist and geobiologist who serves as a professor at the University of Edinburgh. Her academic research focuses on the evolution of ancient reefs, the biological process of biomineralization, and the environmental changes during the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition. Thr...

Charles Marshall is a British-American paleontologist who serves as a professor at Harvard University and the director of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. His research focuses on quantitative studies of the fossil record, with particular emphasis on the Cambrian explosion and mass extincti...

Michal Kowalewski is a Polish-American paleontologist and academic who serves as a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History. His scientific research is distinguished by its reliance on quantitative methods, computational modeling, and statistical analysis to understand the fossil record. He...

Allison Daley is a paleontologist specializing in the study of early animal evolution during the Cambrian Explosion, with a focus on ancient marine arthropods. Her research extensively covers radiodonts, a group of stem-group arthropods, including notable species like *Anomalocaris* and *Hurdia*. Da...

Martin Smith is a British paleontologist whose research focuses on Cambrian fossils and the early evolution of invertebrate animals. His work has examined the anatomy and evolutionary relationships of early mollusks, worms, and fossils whose affinities are difficult to determine from preserved morph...

Helen Muir-Wood was a British paleontologist who specialized in brachiopods, a group of marine invertebrates with an extensive fossil record. Her research contributed to the classification and interpretation of Paleozoic brachiopods and to reference works used in invertebrate paleontology. Working a...

Charles Schuchert was an American invertebrate paleontologist who spent most of his career at Yale University, serving as chair of the geology department and director of the Peabody Museum of Natural History. He was known for his work on Paleozoic brachiopods and for producing some of the earliest c...

Guy Narbonne is a Canadian paleontologist and professor at Queen's University whose research focuses on early multicellular life. He is specifically noted for his work on the Ediacaran period, particularly the ancient fossil assemblages found at Mistaken Point in Newfoundland. His fieldwork and anal...

Charles Doolittle Walcott was a prominent American paleontologist renowned for his extensive research into invertebrate life during the Cambrian period. His 1909 discovery of the Burgess Shale in British Columbia provided an exceptionally detailed record of ancient marine organisms offering invaluab...

Emily Mitchell is a British paleontologist and paleoecologist whose research focuses on the spatial ecology of early animal communities. She is known for applying quantitative and computational methods to study Ediacaran fossil assemblages, particularly the soft-bodied organisms found in Newfoundlan...

Adolf Seilacher was a German paleontologist specializing in invertebrate paleontology and paleoecology. His research focused on trace fossils – primarily ichnofacies – providing insights into ancient environments and animal behavior. He is particularly recognized for his detailed studies of fossil t...

Peter D. Ward is an American paleontologist and astrobiologist affiliated with the University of Washington. He is widely recognized for his research on mass extinctions, particularly the end-Permian event, and his work on cephalopod fossils like ammonites. Ward is also known for co-authoring the "R...

David J. Siveter is a British paleontologist and professor at the University of Leicester whose research focuses on fossil arthropods, particularly ostracods. He is known for his work on exceptionally preserved Silurian fossils from the Herefordshire Lagerstätte in England, which preserve soft-body...

James Crampton is a New Zealand paleontologist specializing in invertebrate paleontology, particularly the study of Cretaceous mollusks and bivalves. Much of his research is associated with GNS Science, where he utilizes biostratigraphy to analyze the fossil record of Zealandia. His work contributes...

Patricia Kelley is an American paleontologist and geologist whose research examines the evolutionary history of predator-prey interactions, with particular emphasis on drilling predation by naticid and muricid gastropods recorded as boreholes in fossil bivalve and gastropod shells. She has conducted...

Derek Siveter is a British paleontologist noted for research on fossil arthropods and exceptionally preserved Silurian animals from the Herefordshire Lagerstätte.

Dieter Korn is a German paleontologist specializing in Paleozoic ammonoids, whose shells are widely used to study evolution and date marine rock sequences.

Derek Briggs is a prominent paleontologist specializing in the study of invertebrates from the Burgess Shale formation in Britain. His work focuses on taphonomy – the processes affecting fossilization – and provides crucial insights into early animal evolution. Briggs’ research significantly advance...

Neil Landman is an American paleontologist and former museum curator known for research on ammonites and other cephalopods around the end-Cretaceous extinction.

Richard Fortey is a British paleontologist, paleobiologist, and writer who spent his career as a senior paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. He specialized in the study of trilobites and Paleozoic invertebrates, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1997. Fortey is also...

Euan Clarkson was a Scottish paleontologist renowned for showing how the calcite lenses of trilobite eyes functioned and evolved.

Warren Allmon is an American paleontologist specializing in fossil mollusks and the history of paleontology, and a former director of Cornell's Paleontological Research Institution.