Alan Feduccia

Alan Feduccia
Feduccia in 2009
Born
John Alan Feduccia

(1943-04-25) April 25, 1943 (age 81)
NationalityAmerican
CitizenshipUnited States
Alma materUniversity of Michigan
AwardsFellow, American Ornithologists' Union 1974
Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science 1994
Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award (2018)
Scientific career
FieldsOrnithology, Paleornithology, Paleontology, Biology
InstitutionsUniversity of North Carolina

John Alan Feduccia (born April 25, 1943[1]) is a paleornithologist specializing in the origins and phylogeny of birds. He is S. K. Heninger Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina. Feduccia's authored works include three major books, The Age of Birds,[2] The Origin and Evolution of Birds,[3] and Riddle of the Feathered Dragons.[4]

Feduccia opposes the overwhelming scientific consensus that birds originated from and are deeply nested within Theropoda, and are therefore living theropod dinosaurs.[5][6][7][8] He has argued for an alternative theory in which birds share a common stem-ancestor with theropod dinosaurs among more basal archosaurian lineages, with birds originating from small arboreal archosaurs in the Triassic.

  1. ^ Library of Congress entry
  2. ^ Feduccia (1980)
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Feduccia 1999 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Riddle of the Feathered Dragons. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2012. ISBN 978-0-300-16435-0.
  5. ^ Ostrom, J. H. (1973). "The ancestry of birds". Nature. 242 (5393): 136. Bibcode:1973NPhS..242..136O. doi:10.1038/242136a0.
  6. ^ Ostrom, J. H. (1976). "Archaeopteryx and the origin of birds" (PDF). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 8 (2): 91–182. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8312.1976.tb00244.x.
  7. ^ Gauthier, J. A. (1986). "Saurischian monophyly and the Origin of Birds". In Padian, K. (ed.). The Origin of Birds and the Evolution of Flight. Memoirs of the California Academy of Sciences. Vol. 8. California Academy of Sciences. pp. 1–55. ISBN 0-940228-14-9.
  8. ^ Padian, Kevin. (2004). "Basal Avialae". In Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; Osmólska, Halszka (eds.). The Dinosauria (Second ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 210–231. ISBN 0-520-24209-2.