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Grimaldi, Davd A.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Curator and Professor, Invertebrate Zoology
Education
- Cornell University, Ph.D, 1986
- SUNY Binghamton, M.Sc., 1983
- University of Connecticut, B.Sc., 1978
Dr. Grimaldi’s research is broadly concerned with the evolution of insects, from species-level diversity in drosophilid fruit flies to the phylogeny of orders over the past 400 million years. The research relies on fieldwork collecting recent species and excavating new deposits, exploratory morphology, study of insect fossils (particularly those exquisitely preserved in amber), and phylogenetics. This information is then used as a scaffold for the interpretation of ecological and evolutionary patterns in insects. A major research project at present includes the relation between the radiations of insects and angiosperms in the Cretaceous. This project is based primarily on the systematics of insects preserved in diverse deposits of Cretaceous amber from New Jersey, Myanmar, Lebanon, Alaska, and other localities. Another major project is on a diverse deposit of Triassic insects from Virginia, the only such deposit in the Western Hemisphere. Ongoing research explores the diversity and biogeography of a Miocene community preserved in amber from Hispaniola.
PUBLICATIONS
- Agosti, D., Grimaldi, D.A., Carpenter, J.M. 1998. Oldest known ant fossils discovered. Nature 391: 447.
- Barden, P., Grimaldi, D.A. 2012. Rediscovery of the bizarre Cretaceous ant Haidomyrmex (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), including two new species. American Museum Novitates 3755, 1–16 (doi:10.1206/3755.2).
- Barden, P., Grimaldi, D.A. 2013. A new genus of highly specialized ants in Cretaceous Burmese amber (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Zootaxa 3681 (4), 405–412 (doi:10.11646/zootaxa.3681.4.5).
- Barden, P., Grimaldi, D.A. 2014. A diverse ant fauna from the mid-Cretaceous of Myanmar (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). PLoS ONE 9 (4), e93627 (doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0093627).
- Barden, P., Grimaldi, D.A. 2016. Adaptive radiation in socially advanced stem-group ants from the Cretaceous. Current Biology 26:515-521.
- Barden, P., Herhold, H.W., Grimaldi, D.A. 2017. A new genus of hell ants from the Cretaceous (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Haidomyrmecini) with a novel head structure. Systematic Entomology 42 (4), 837–846 (doi:10.1111/syen.12253).
- Engel, M.S., Grimaldi, D.A. 2005. Primitive new ants in Cretaceous amber from Myanmar, New Jersey, and Canada (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). American Museum Novitates 3485, 1–23 (doi:10.1206/0003-0082(2005)485[0001:PNAICA2.0.CO;2]).
- Grimaldi, D.A., Engel, M.S., Nascimbene, P.C. 2002. Fossiliferous Cretaceous amber from Myanmar (Burma): its rediscovery, biotic diversity, and paleontological significance. American Museum Novitates 3361:1-71.
- Grimaldi, D.A., Triplehorn, D.M. 2008. Insects from the Upper Miocene Grubstake Formation of Alaska. American Museum Novitates 3612:1-19.
- Grimaldi, D.A., Agosti, D. 2000. The oldest ants are Cretaceous, not Eocene: comment. Canadian Entomologist 132:691-693.
- Grimaldi, D.A., Agosti, D. 2000. A formicine in New Jersey Cretaceous amber (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) and early evolution of the ants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 97:13678-13683.
- Grimaldi, D.A., Agosti, D. 2000. A formicine in Cretaceous amber (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) and early evolution of the ants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 97 (25), 13678–13683 (doi:10.1073/pnas.240452097).
- Grimaldi, D.A., Agosti, D., Carpenter, J.M. 1997. New and rediscovered primitive ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Cretaceous amber from New Jersey, and their phylogenetic relationships. American Museum Novitates, 3208, 1–43.
- Grimaldi, D.A., Engel, M.S. 2005. Evolution of the Insects: 755 pp. Cambridge Univ. Press.
References
- Barden, P., Engel, M.S. 2022. The vision of David Grimaldi. Palaeoentomology 5(5): 406-429 (doi:10.11646/palaeoentomology.5.5.1).