Alan Feduccia is S. K. Heninger Professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is an evolutionary biologist interested in vertebrate evolution, especially the origin of birds from reptiles, the origin of avian flight, and Tertiary adaptive radiation.

Feduccia took his B.S. in Zoology from L.S.U., and Masters and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He lectured at Michigan and then taught at S.M.U. for two years before joining the University of North Carolina faculty in 1971. Feduccia's research has taken him on numerous expeditions to Central and South America and Africa. He is the author of more than 125 scientific publications dealing primarily with the evolution of birds and other vertebrates, embryology, comparative morphology, and evolutionary systematics. His publications include some ten books (including editions & translations), and five monographs, including the internationally acclaimed and award-winning, The Age of Birds, Harvard University Press (1980), which appeared in Japanese, German and paperback editions. Reviewer comments included: "a revelation of clarity and synthesis...Feduccia--himself a leading anatomist--has brought together startling new evidence on the reptilian-avian relationship... science writing at its best," and in 1993 the book was termed "definitive" by the New York Times.

His popular books include Catesby's Birds of Colonial America (U.N.C. Press, 1985), and Birds of Colonial Williamsburg (Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1989), illustrated with 70 watercolors by famed bird artist Douglas Pratt. His new book The Origin and Evolution of Birds was the lead science book for Yale University Press for the fall of 1996, and winner of the 1996 Scholarly and Professional Publishing Award of the Association of American Publishers. Feduccia has recently published cover articles in Science and Naturwissenschaften, and the former was listed in Discover Magazine's top 50 news stories of 1993, and in Science News' science news of the year.

He has lately been interviewed on numberous radio and television shows, including frequent appareances on National Public Radio, BBC, and Voice of America. He has appeared recently on the Australian television show Quantum, ABCTV (1995), the McNeil/Lehrer Report (1995 and 1997), the Japanese television series "Planet of Life", Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), Science and Technology Satelite News, (February 1996), NBC Radio News, CBS Radio News, NPR Morning Edition, ABC Radio News, Australia (1997), ABC Discovery News (April 1998) and the Discovery Channel's If Dinosaurs Could Fly (February 1998). He is an invitee to "Renaissance Weekend."

1973. Evolutionary Trends in the Neotropical Ovenbirds and Woodhewers. Ornithological Monographs, No. 13, iv + 69 pp., 20 text figures. (published Ph.D. dissertation).

1975. Structure and Evolution of Vertebrates: A Laboratory Text for Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc. viii + 168 pp., 125 ill.

1975. Morphology of the Bony Stapes (Columella) in the Passeriformes and Related Groups: Evolutionary Implications. Univ. Kansas, Mus. Nat. Hist., Misc. Publ., 63: 1-34; 7 figs., 16 pls.

1979. (with Theodore W. Torrey). Morphogenesis of the Vertebrates. 4th ed., New York: John Wiley & Sons. xii + 570 pp., 370 figs.

1980. (with Storrs L. Olson, senior author). Relationships and Evolution of Flamingos (Aves: Phoenicopteridae. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, 316, iii + 73 pp., 40 figs. (Reviewed in Nature, Jan. 24, 1981, and Science Digest, August, 1981).

1980. (with Storrs L. Olson, senior author). Presbyornis and the Origin of the Anseriformes. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, 323, iii + 24 pp., 15 figs.

1980. The Age of Birds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. xi + 208 pp., 76 halftones, and 132 line drawings. (Reviewed in: New York Times, Oct. 7, 1980; Newsweek, Dec. 8, 1980; Discover, Dec., 1980; Washington Post, Dec. 7, 1980; Los Angeles Times, Dec. l4, 1980; Village Voice, Dec. 10, 1980; Science, March l3, 1981; Nature, April 23, 1981, etc.). (winner of 1981 American Association of University Presses Award).

1982. (with Storrs L. Olson). Morphological Similarities Between the Menurae and the Rhinocryptidae, Relict Passerine Birds of the Southern Hemisphere. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology, 366, iii + 22 pp., 17 figs.

1984. Es Begann am Jura-Meer: Die faszinierende Stammesgeschichte der Vogel. German ed. The Age of Birds. Hildesheim, Germany: Gerstenberg Buchuerlag, 198 pp.

1985. The Age of Birds. Japanese ed., Tokyo: Shisaku Sha, 336 pp.

1985. Catesby's Birds of Colonial America. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, xvi + 176 pp., 111 ils., 20 color plates.

1987. The Age of Birds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Paperback edition. xi + 208 pp.

1989. Birds of Colonial Williamsburg: A Historical Portfolio. Williamsburg, Virginia: The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. 162 pp.,70 watercolors by Douglas Pratt.

1991. (with E. McCrady). Torrey's Morphogenesis of the Vertebrates. 5th ed., New York: John Wiley & Sons, 517 p.

1999. The Origin and Evolution of Birds, 2nd Ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 466 pp.

Feduccia, A. 1993. Evidence from claw geometry indicating arboreal habits of Archaeopteryx. Science 259: 790-793. (with cover painting by John P. O'Neill, and commentary, pp. 764-765, by Virginia Morell; Discovery-top 50 science stories of 1993).

Feduccia, A. 1993. Tertiary birds; notes and comments. In: Major Features of Vertebrate Evolution: Short Courses in Vertebrate Paleontology No. 7 (D. R. Prothero and R. M. Schoch, eds.), pp. 178-189. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.

Feduccia, A., and R. Wild. 1993. Birdlike characters in the Triassic archosaur Megalancosaurus. Naturwissenschaften 80: 564-566. (with cover painting by John P. O'Neill).

Feduccia, A. 1994. Aerodynamic model for the evolution of feathers and feather misinterpretation. Courier Forschungsinstitut-Senckenberg 18: 65-77.

Feduccia, A. 1994. The great dinosaur debate. Living Bird 13(4): 28-33.

Hou, L.-H., Z. Zhou., L. D. Martin, and A. Feduccia. 1995. A beaked bird from the Jurassic of China. Nature 377: 616-618. (Discover-top 100 science stories of 1995).

Feduccia, A. 1995. Explosive evolution in Tertiary birds and mammals. Science 267: 637-638.

Feduccia, A., L. D. Martin, and J. E. Simmons. 1996. Nesting dinosaur. Science 272: 1571.

Hou, L.-H., L. D. Martin, Z. Zhou., and A. Feduccia. 1996. Earliest adaptive radiation of birds revealed by newly discovered Chinese fossils. Science 274: 1164-1167.

Burke, A. C. and A. Feduccia. 1997. Developmental patterns and the identification of homologies in the avian hand. Science 278: 666-668. (with commentary by R. Hinchliffe, pp. 596-597).

Hou, L.-H., Martin, L. D., Z. Zhou, and A. Feduccia. 1999. A diapsid skull in a new species of Confuciousosrnis. Nature 399: 679-682.

Feduccia, A. 1999. 1,2,3=2,3,4: Accomodating the cladogram. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 96: 4740-4742.

Jones, T. D., J. Ruben, L. D. Martin, E. V. Kurochkin, A. Feduccia, P. F. A. Maderson, W. J. Hellenius, N. R. Gesit, and V. Alifanov. 2000. Nonavian feathers in a late Triassic archosaur. Science 288: 2202-2205. (Commentary: Feathers, or flight of fancy?. by E. Stokstad, 2124-2125).

Feduccia, A. 2001. The problem of bird origins and early avian evolution. Journal fur Ornithologie (in press). Plenary lecture for the 150th anniversary of the German Ornithological Society, Leipzig, October, 2000.