Mayr wrote extensively on the philosophy and history of biology as a science, and authored more than 700 articles and numerous books. He named 26 new species of birds and dozens of species of orchids, and was a key influence on biophysicist and physiologist Jared Diamond. Mayr retired in 1975, but continued his research and writing for decades. His first scientific paper was published in 1923, and his last book came out in 2005, when he was 100 years of age, just months before his death.
[1] Born into a Protestant family.
Father: Otto Mayr (attorney/jurist, b. 23-Jul-1867, d. 1-Jul-1917)
Mother: Helene Pusinelli (b. 22-Jul-1870, d. 31-May-1952)
Brother: Otto (b. 1901, d. 1985)
Brother: Hans (b. 1906, d. 1954)
Wife: Margarete Simon ("Gretel", m. 4-May-1935, d. 1990, two daughters)
Daughter: Christa Elizabeth Menzel
Daughter: Susanne Harrison
University: BS Biology, University of Greifswald (1925)
University: PhD Zoology, University of Berlin (1926)
Scholar: Zoology, University of Berlin (1926-32)
Professor: Louis Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Harvard University (1953-75)
Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology Director (1961-70)
American Museum of Natural History Curator of Birds (1944-53)
American Museum of Natural History Associate Curator of Birds (1932-44)
American Museum of Natural History Research Associate in Ornithology (1931-32)
ANS Joseph Leidy Medal 1946
LSL Wallace Darwin Medal 1958
AOU William Brewster Medal 1965
National Medal of Science 1970
Balzan Prize 1983
Darwin Medal 1984
Japan Prize 1994
Benjamin Franklin Medal 1995 (awarded by the Franklin Institute)
Crafoord Prize 1999
Academy of Achievement 2001
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Ornithologists' Union Vice President, 1953-56
American Ornithologists' Union President, 1956-59
American Philosophical Society
American Society of Naturalists President, 1962-63
American Society of Zoologists
Linnean Society of London
National Academy of Sciences
New York Zoological Society
Society for the Study of Evolution Secretary, 1946
Society for the Study of Evolution President, 1950
Zoological Society of London
Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
Bavarian Ancestry
German Ancestry
Naturalized US Citizen 1931
Author of books:
List of New Guinea Birds (1941)
Systematics and the Origin of Species (1942)
Birds of Paradise (1945)
Birds of the Southwest Pacific (1945)
Birds of the Philippines (1946, with Jean Delacour)
Methods and Principles of Systemic Zoology (1963, with E. G. Linsley and R. L. Usinger)
Animal Species and Evolution (1963, zoology)
Evolution and the Diversity of Life (1976)
The Growth of Biological Thought (1982)
Toward a New Philosophy of Biology: Observations of An Evolutionist (1988)
One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought (1991)
This is Biology: The Science of the Living World (1997)
The Birds of Northern Melanesia (2001, with Jared Diamond)
What Evolution Is (2001)
What Makes Biology Unique?: Considerations on the Autonomy of a Scientific Discipline (2004)
AKA Ernst Walter Mayr