John A. Long

John Long in the field with Gogo fossil fish, July 2005.

John Albert Long (born 1957) is an Australian paleontologist who is currently Strategic Professor in Palaeontology at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. He was previously the Vice President of Research and Collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.[1] He is also an author of popular science books.[2] His main area of research is on the fossil fish of the Late Devonian Gogo Formation from northern Western Australia.[3] It has yielded many important insights into fish evolution, such as Gogonasus[4] and Materpiscis,[5] the later specimen being crucial to our understanding of the origins of vertebrate reproduction.[6]

His love of fossil collecting began at age 7[7] and he graduated with PhD from Monash University in 1984, specialising in Palaeozoic fish evolution. He held postdoctoral positions at the Australian National University (1984–85, Rothmans Fellow), The University of Western Australia (1986–87, Queen Elizabeth II Award) and The University of Tasmania (1988–89, ARC Fellow) before taking up a position as Curator in Vertebrate Palaeontology at the Western Australian Museum (1989–2004),[8] and then as Head of Sciences at Museum Victoria (2004–2009).[9]

  1. ^ "Burning Man". LA Times Magazine. 13 August 2010. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
  2. ^ "The Big Picture Book". Allenandunwin.com. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
  3. ^ Long, John A. (1 February 2010). "The Late Devonian Gogo Formation Lägerstatte of Western Australia: Exceptional Early Vertebrate Preservation and Diversity – Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 38(1):255". Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 38. Annualreviews.org: 255–279. Bibcode:2010AREPS..38..255L. doi:10.1146/annurev-earth-040809-152416.
  4. ^ Nature (2006). "An exceptional Devonian fish from Australia sheds light on tetrapod origins". Nature. 444 (7116): 199–202. Bibcode:2006Natur.444..199L. doi:10.1038/nature05243. PMID 17051154. S2CID 2412640.
  5. ^ Nature (2008). "Live birth in the Devonian period". Nature. 453 (7195): 650–652. Bibcode:2008Natur.453..650L. doi:10.1038/nature06966. PMID 18509443. S2CID 205213348.
  6. ^ "The Mother Fish". Nature. Retrieved 19 January 2012.
  7. ^ Clode, Danielle (2021). John Long: Fossil hunter. Melbourne: Wild Dingo Press. pp. 1–7.
  8. ^ Russell, Bruce. "Books : Swimming in Stone: The Amazing Gogo Fossils of the Kimberley by John Long". Fremantle Press. Retrieved 13 February 2011.
  9. ^ "Museum Victoria Farewells John Long « Victorian Skeptics". Vicskeptics.wordpress.com. 28 August 2009. Retrieved 13 February 2011.