Walter Mayr Accomplishments

Ernst Mayr: an esteemed biologist who contributed to avian taxonomy, genetics, and evolution. He was a man who accomplished much, did much, and learned much. In his time, he was known as the ““Darwin of the 20th century””, because he expanded on Darwin’s theory of natural selection and completed it. (Encyclopedia Britannica) He earned many accomplishments and became honored in our society. Ernst Walter Mayr, born on July 5, 1904 in Kempten, Germany, was raised in a family of boys. His father died in World War I, and the rest of his family moved to Dresden. He was 13 at the time. (Academy of Achievement) In 1923, he went to the University of Greifswald, and got his his doctorate in ornithology from the University of Berlin in 1926;age 21. (Stewart) Mayr was known to be an …show more content…
He encouraged Ernst to pursue ornithology and became his tutor in high school. (Famous People) He had an interest in birds and researched/studied them; he was talented at locating and identifying them. He even led trips through New Guinea and the Solomon Islands to look at the different species and varieties of animals there. He continued to pursue this subject, entering the American Museum of Natural History in New York, 1932, where he wrote more than 100 articles on bird taxonomy. He published many works, his most famous being Systematics and the Origin of Species in the year of 1942, which was about evolution and genetics. (Stewart) He wrote, agreeing with the theory of natural selection, which concludes that species who adapt to their environment are able to produce more offspring. This is where he continued Darwin’s work, tying up the last pieces of his research. Mayr’s theory was this: “...a species is not merely a group of morphologically closer individuals, but a group that breeds only among themselves, excluding all others” (Stewart). To simplify what his goal was, Mayr prescribed a definition of the term