Alfred Romer was born in White Plains, New York, the son of Harry Houston Romer and his wife, Evalyn Sherwood. He was educated at White Plains High School.[2]
Romer was a keen practical student of vertebrate evolution. Comparing facts from paleontology, comparative anatomy, and embryology, he taught the basic structural and functional changes that happened during the evolution of fishes to ancestral terrestrial vertebrates and from these to all other tetrapods. He always emphasized the evolutionary significance of the relationship between form and function of animals and their environment.
Through his textbook Vertebrate Paleontology, Romer laid the foundation for the traditional classification of vertebrates. He drew together the then widely scattered taxonomy of the different vertebrate groups and combined them into a single scheme, emphasizing orderliness and overview. Based on his research into early amphibians, he reorganised the labyrinthodontians.[8]Romer's classification has been followed by many subsequent authors, notably Robert L. Carroll, and is still in use.
Romeriscus is a genus from the early Pennsylvanian (Late Carboniferous) initially described as the oldest known amniote,[9] but this is because limnoscelids were, at that time, considered amniotes by some authors. A subsequent study showed that the fossil lacks diagnostic characters and can only be assigned to Tetrapoda.[10]
Dromomeron romeri is a species of non-dinosaurian dinosauromorph named in July 2007. The genus name means 'running femur,' and the species name honors the paleontologist, a key figure in evolution research. The finding of these fossils was hailed as a breakthrough proving dinosaurs and other dinosauromorphs "lived together for as long as 15 to 20 million years."[11][12]
Romer was the first to recognise the gap in the fossil record between the tetrapods of the Devonian and the later Carboniferous period, a gap that has borne the name Romer's gap since 1995.[13]
A romerogram of the vertebrates at class level, with the width of spindles indicating number of families.
A romerogram, also called spindle diagram, or bubble diagram, is a diagram popularised by Alfred Romer.[14]
It represents taxonomic diversity (horizontal width) against geological time (vertical axis) in order to reflect the variation of abundance of various taxa through time.[15]
Romer, A.S. 1933. Vertebrate Paleontology. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. (2nd ed. 1945; 3rd ed. 1966)
Romer, A.S. 1933. Man and the Vertebrates. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. (2nd ed. 1937; 3rd ed. 1941; 4th ed., retitled The Vertebrate Story, 1949)
^Reisz R, Laurin M (1992). "A reassessment of the Pennsylvanian tetrapod Romeriscus". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 12 (4): 524–527. doi:10.1080/02724634.1992.10011478.
