PHILADELPHIA A paleontologist who discovered a missing link and an artist with an obsession with fish each will receive a prestigious award for their achievements from The Academy of Natural Sciences at its 195th Annual Meeting on Friday, June 1.

Dr. Ted Daeschler, who co-discovered the 375-million-year-old Canadian Arctic fossil that is an evolutionary link between fish and limbed animals, will receive the Hayden Memorial Geological Award for excellence in scientific discovery and research. The Academy's Associate Curator of Vertebrate Biology, Daeschler joined Philadelphia's natural history museum in 1987 as a collection manager. Besides overseeing an active research collection, Daeschler has made numerous key discoveries in northern Pennsylvania and in the Arctic of Late Devonian Age (375-365 million years ago) fossils that trace the evolution of limbed animals. Daeschler received his Ph.D in geology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1998. For more information on Daeschler's Arctic discovery see www.ansp.org/research/biodiv/vert_paleo/paleonunavut.php.

Ray Troll, an artist, naturalist, author and musician living in Alaska, will receive the Gold Medal for Distinction in Natural History Art for contributing to a better understanding and appreciation of living things. Armed with a life-long interest in natural history, Troll got his start in pop culture by creating offbeat depictions of fish and other sea creatures for T-shirts. He has co-written and illustrated six books including Rapture of the Deep and Sharkabet, has written blues songs about fish and is the art director for a traveling exhibition that opens June 2 at the Academy called Amazon Voyages: Vicious Fishes and Other Riches. For more on Troll, see www.trollart.com.

"These individuals have broken new ground into the history and exotica of life," said Academy Presi
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Contact: Carolyn Belardo
belardo@ansp.org
215-299-1043
The Academy of Natural Sciences
30-Apr-2007