Verrill, A.E. (Addison Emery), 1839-1926

Addison Emery Verrill (1839-1926) earned his Harvard SB summa cum laude in 1862 and an honorary AM from Yale in 1867. As an undergraduate student, he spent much of his time in the study of zoology, spending many hours cataloging specimens in the museum of comparative zoology and joining expeditions. In the summer of 1861, Addison Emery Verill, a Harvard undergraduate, joined an expedition to Anticosti. He worked closely with Professor Louis Agassiz. Verrill became Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Entomology at the University of Wisconsin from 1868 to 1870. He was Yale University's first Professor of Zoology, serving there from 1864-1907.

Addison Emery Verrill was a zoologist and taxonomist who specialized in marine invertebrates.

Verrill studied at Harvard under Louis Agassiz, and in 1864 was appointed to the the newly-created chair of zoology at Yale, where he spent the rest of his career until his retirement in 1910. He also started the zoological collections of the Peabody Museum of Natural History and served as curator. From 1871 until 1887, Verrill was in charge of the the scientific investigations of the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, studying the specimens and participating in a number of expeditions: to the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America; and to Hawaii, Bermuda and Central America. He discovered and described hundreds of new marine species and published over 300 scientific papers. Verrill intended to write a series of monographs on all the major groups of marine invertebrates, but was unable to complete such an ambitious project. His son, Alpheus Hyatt Verrill, assisted in the completion of some of the illustrations.