Jennifer Alice Clack,FRS, FLS (néeAgnew; 3 November 1947 – 26 March 2020) was an Englishpalaeontologist andevolutionary biologist. She specialised in the early evolution oftetrapods, specifically studying the "fish to tetrapod" transition: the origin, evolutionary development and radiation of early tetrapods and their relatives among thelobe-finned fishes. She is best known for her bookGaining Ground: the Origin and Early Evolution of Tetrapods, published in 2002 (second edition, 2012) and written with the layperson in mind.
Clack was curator at theMuseum of Zoology andProfessor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at theUniversity of Cambridge, where she devoted her career to studying the early development of tetrapods, the "four-legged" animals said to have evolved fromDevonian lobe-finned fishes and colonised the freshwater swamps of theCarboniferous period.
Clack was born on 3 November 1947, the only child of Ernest and Alice Agnew.[1] She was brought up inManchester, England.[2] She was educated atBolton School (Girls' Division), aprivate school inBolton,Lancashire. She received a B.Sc. in Zoology from theUniversity of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1970. In 1978, she accepted an invitation from Alec Panchen to obtain a Ph.D. from the same university, at the encouragement of her then new boyfriend Rob Clack. They married in 1980. Her doctorate was completed in 1984. She also held a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from theUniversity of Leicester and anMA from theUniversity of Cambridge. On 9 December 2000, she was awarded aDoctor of Science (ScD) degree by theUniversity of Cambridge.[3]
In 1981, Clack joined theUniversity Museum of Zoology,University of Cambridge, as an Assistant Curator.[1][2] She was promoted to Senior Assistant Curator in 1995. Since 2005, she has been Curator in Vertebrate Palaeontology at the museum.[1] In 2006, she was awarded apersonal chair by the University of Cambridge, and took the title Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology.[4] She retired in 2015 and became Emeritus Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the museum.[5] In 1997, Clack was elected aFellow ofDarwin College, Cambridge;[6] since 1 October 2015, she has been anEmeritus Fellow.[7][8] From 2000 to 2005, she wasReader in Vertebrate Palaeontology at theUniversity of Cambridge.[1] On 1 October 2006, Clack was awarded apersonal chair by Cambridge, taking the title Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology.[1][9]
Clack is best known for her extensive body of work on early tetrapods, much of which redefined how paleontologists conceived of the evolution of limbs and other features associated with tetrapods' transition from other lobe-finned fishes. She began her career working primarily on the ear of early tetrapods[10] and later expanded to more broadly addressing the osteology and evolution of tetrapods. Together with Michael Coates (University of Chicago), Clack defined what is known as "Romer's Gap",[11] a major gap in the fossil record of early tetrapods and one that she subsequently began to fill in collaboration with other paleontologists. Clack also undertook extensive fieldwork expeditions in order to search for further remains of early tetrapods. In 1987, during an expedition toEast Greenland, Clack and her team discovered the remains of theDevonian tetrapodsAcanthostega andIchthyostega, following up on field notes of researchers who had collected material ofAcanthostega in 1970.[12] Additional surveys in 1998 led to the collection of substantial new material, including what is now recognized asYmeria.[13] Most recently, she led a major consortium project (TW:eed[14]) investigating some exciting new fossils from Northumberland and theBorders Region of Scotland which date from theTournaisian stage of the earliestCarboniferous period; this project has produced numerous publications furthering the understanding of early tetrapod evolution.[15][16][17][18]
Over the course of her lengthy career, Clack published in some of the most notable scientific journals, includingNature,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33]Science,[34][35] andProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences[36][37] and is one of the most published vertebrate paleontologists in Nature, arguably the leading scientific journal in the world, with over 15 papers in that journal alone. In addition to herGaining Ground book, Clack also co-authored a volume of the Handbuch der Paläoherpetologie series on early tetrapods with Andrew Milner in 2015[38] and co-edited a volume on the evolution of hearing in 2016.[39]
Clack is probably best known for discovering that the earliesttetrapods had more than five toes per foot: the Upper Devonian tetrapods from East Greenland,Ichthyostega had seven whileAcanthostega had eight (compared to the six toes of the Russian Devonian tetrapodTulerpeton). This suggests thatpentadactyly was not an ancestral trait for tetrapods.[40]
Clack supervised many graduate students who went on to pursue successful careers in paleontology and evolutionary biology, includingPer Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Paul Upchurch (University College London), Michael Lee (Flinders University), and Matthew Friedman (University of Michigan).[5] In April 2012 she was featured in an episode[41] of the BBC television seriesBeautiful Minds, a set of documentaries about scientists who have made important discoveries. This may be viewed on YouTube.[42] Clack was honored by her peers with afestschrift published in 2019.[5]
On 15 June 2013, Clack was awarded anhonoraryDoctor of Science (DSc) degree by theUniversity of Chicago. The university described her as "an internationally preeminent palaeontologist whose research has profoundly changed the understanding of the origin of terrestrial vertebrate life."[62] Also in 2013, she was awarded the T Neville George Medal by theGeological Society of Glasgow.[63]
^"Master & fellows".Darwin College, Cambridge. University of Cambridge. Retrieved3 November 2015.
^"Report of the General Board on Senior Academic Promotions".Cambridge University Reporter. No. 6036. 17 May 2006. p. 17.
^Clack, J. A. (1983). "The stapes of the Coal Measures embolomere Pholiderpeton scutigerum Huxley (Amphibia: Anthracosauria) and otic evolution in early tetrapods".Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.79 (2):121–148.doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1983.tb01163.x.ISSN0024-4082.
^Coates, Michael I.; Clack, Jennifer A. (1995). "Romer's gap: Tetrapod origins and terrestriality".Bulletin du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Section C. 4e série.17:373–388.
^Clément, Gaël; Ahlberg, Per E.; Blieck, Alain; Blom, Henning; Clack, Jennifer A.; Poty, Edouard; Thorez, Jacques; Janvier, Philippe (2004). "Devonian tetrapod from western Europe".Nature.427 (6973):412–413.doi:10.1038/427412a.ISSN0028-0836.PMID14749820.S2CID4414996.
^"Basal Tetrapoda".Dr. Friedrich Pfeil Publishing. Retrieved12 July 2020.
^Clack, Jennifer A.; Fay, Richard R; Popper, Arthur N., eds. (2016).Evolution of the Vertebrate Ear. Springer Handbook of Auditory Research. Vol. 59. Cham: Springer International Publishing.doi:10.1007/978-3-319-46661-3.ISBN978-3-319-46659-0.S2CID36018536.
^Clack, Jennifer Alice; Challands, Thomas James; Smithson, Timothy Richard; Smithson, Keturah Zoe (2 November 2018). "Newly recognized Famennian lungfishes from East Greenland reveal tooth plate diversity and blur the Devonian–Carboniferous boundary".Papers in Palaeontology.5 (2):261–279.doi:10.1002/spp2.1242.ISSN2056-2802.S2CID134074159.
^Clack, Jennifer A. (2011). "A new microsaur from the early carboniferous (Viséan) of East Kirkton, Scotland, showing soft tissue evidence".Special Papers in Palaeontology.29:45–55.
^Clack, Jennifer A.; Ahlberg, Erik (2004). Arratia, G.; Wilson, M.V.H.; Cloutier, R. (eds.).A new stem tetrapod from the Early Carboniferous of Northern Ireland. München: Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil. pp. 309–320.{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)
^Clack, J A (1 April 2003). "A new baphetid (stem tetrapod) from the Upper Carboniferous of Tyne and Wear, U.K., and the evolution of the tetrapod occiput".Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.40 (4):483–498.Bibcode:2003CaJES..40..483C.doi:10.1139/e02-065.ISSN0008-4077.
^Clack, J. A. (1993). "Silvanerpeton miripedes, a new anthracosauroid from the Viséan of East Kirkton, West Lothian, Scotland".Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.84 (3–4):369–376.doi:10.1017/s0263593300006179.ISSN1755-6910.S2CID130790735.
^Aucott, Rachel (26 March 2020)."Professor Jenny Clack, FRS, 1947-2020".www.zoo.cam.ac.uk. Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge. Retrieved27 March 2020.
