"My personal opinion is that Ernst Mayr is the greatest of the living evolutionary biologists," says John T. Edsall '23, professor of biochemistry, emeritus. "He influenced my outlook [on biology] and enlarged it."

In an interview last week, Mayr said he will recovering from jet lag from his 10-day trip to Japan.

"I woke up at 2 a.m. this morning, and I couldn't get back to sleep," Mayr says. "After a glass of warm milk didn't put me to sleep, I decided I might as well get up and start working."

Indeed, this incessant drive to work has kept Mayr energized for the past 75 years.

The Career

Mayr did not begin his academic career studying biology. As an undergraduate in Germany in the 1920s, he originally planned to follow family tradition and become a doctor.

But Mayr dropped his medical education midway and switched to studying biology when he decided to embark on scientific expeditions. After earning a Ph.D. in zoology, he studied birds in New Guinea for two years.

"Lord Rothschild wanted three mountain ranges explored, so I was sent out at 23 to collect the bird fauna," Mayr says. "I sent back over 3000 bird skins."

Even though he remembers the expeditions fondly, Mayr says he was anxious to get back.

"Expedition life is not as glorious as it is thought to be," Mayr says. "It is strenuous and dangerous, with malaria and dysentery. I wanted to go home and get published."

Mayr's first paper appeared in 1923, and he's published at an astonishing rate since then, averaging about nine a year.

At an interview last week, Mayr thumbed through a blue pamphlet of 30 to 40 pages listing the 654 papers he has published over his lifetime, mostly about birds and evolution.

He still remains as prolific as ever--this year alone, Mayr has already published 12 papers. And Mayr was quick to point out, "there are more in press."

Mayr attributes his love of birds to his childhood years and family.

"I have been a bird-watcher since I was this big," Mayr says, motioning to the height of a young boy. "I was brought up in a good German family, and every Sunday, we went into nature. My mother knew every mushroom in the forest, and my father knew the flowers and the birds."

Mayr began his academic career at the University of Berlin as assistant curator of the university's zoological museum.