Robert "Bob" Lynn Carroll (May 5, 1938 – April 7, 2020) was an American–Canadian vertebrate paleontologist who specialised in Paleozoic and Mesozoic amphibians and reptiles.
Biography
Carroll was an only child and grew up on a farm near Lansing, Michigan. He was introduced to paleontology by his father shortly after his fifth birthday, and by the time he was eight he had decided he wanted to be a vertebrate paleontologist. In that same year he received as a Christmas present the left femur of an Allosaurus, courtesy of Edwin H. Colbert, whom his father had told about his interest. In his teen years his parents took him on many fossil hunting trips to Wyoming and South Dakota.
After high-school, he went to Michigan State University, where he received a B.Sc. in 1959, majoring in Geology. His doctoral thesis dealt with what is now known as Dissorophoidea, a group of Paleozoic amphibians that are often considered the closest relatives of present day amphibians, although they may also be stem-tetrapods if lissamphibians instead arose from within Lepospondyli.
After obtaining his Ph.D., Carroll held a National Research Council (NRC) postdoctoral fellowship at Redpath Museum at McGill University in Montreal (1962-1963), and then a National Science Foundation (NSF) postdoctoral position at the Natural History Museum in London. He was an active professor until 2003, after which he was an emeritus professor.
Carroll died on April 7, 2020, in Westmount, Quebec, of complications from COVID-19. He was survived by his wife, Anna Di Turi, a retired business school teacher, and his one child, David, and granddaughter Juliette.
Scientific research
Carroll was a prolific publisher and studied numerous major topics within paleontology and vertebrate evolution. He is best known for his work addressing the origins and early evolution of amphibians and reptiles and published extensively on lepospondyls, which have been variably considered as ancestors of amphibians or early reptiles. In a related vein, he also published numerous summary articles examining the evolution of tetrapods on land. He is also well published on marine reptiles.
He also published a number of books, including Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution (1988), which remains a seminal textbook, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution (1997), and The Rise of Amphibians: 365 Million Years of Evolution (2009). He coauthored another textbook, Paleontology (1998), and a volume of the Encyclopedia of Paleoherpetology on lepospondyls (1998). He also edited a volume of the Amphibian Biology series on the evolutionary history of amphibians (2000).
Carroll contributed to naming an extensive number of new species, outlined below:
{| class="wikitable sortable"
!Year
!Taxon
!Authors
|-
|1991
|Utaherpeton franklini gen. et sp. nov.
|Carroll, Bybee, & Tidwell
|-
|1982
|Lacertulus bipes gen. et sp. nov.
|Carroll & Thompson
|-
|1981
|Claudiosaurus germaini gen. et sp. nov.
|Carroll
|-
|1978
|Cardiocephalus peabodyi sp. nov.
|Carroll & Gaskill
|-
|1978
|Crinodon gen. nov.
|Carroll & Gaskill
|-
|1973
|Protocaptorhinus pricei gen. et sp. nov.
|Clark & Carroll
|-
|1973
|Romeria prima sp. nov.
|Clark & Carroll
|-
|1967
|Limnostygis relictus gen. et sp. nov.
|Carroll
|-
|1967
|Romeriscus periallus gen. et sp. nov.
|Baird & Carroll
|-
|1964
|Broiliellus brevis sp. nov.
|Carroll
|-
|1964
|Brevidorsum profundum gen. et sp. nov.
|Carroll
|Carroll
|}
Several taxa are named after Carroll, including the teleost fish Mahengecharax carrolli, the 'microsaurs' Bolterpeton carrolli (now a synonym of the parareptile Delorhynchus) and Carrolla craddocki, and the captorhinid Opisthodontosaurus carrolli. He was honored with a festschrift in 2003. Carroll also served as the president of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology from 1982 to 1983. The Canadian Society of Vertebrate Paleontology's Carroll Prize is named after Carroll.
Carroll is often credited with being the "father of Canadian vertebrate paleontology"