Ernst Walter Mayr was born on July 5 1904 in Kempten, Germany. He was one of the 20th century’s leading evolutionary biologists.

Ernst Walter Mayr was born on July 5 1904 in Kempten, Germany. He was one of the 20^th century’s leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, historian of science, and naturalist. In his book systematics and the Origin of SpeciesHe wrote that a species is not just a group of morphologically similar individuals but a group that can breed only among themselves, excluding all other. His theory of peripatric speciation based on his work on birds, is still considered a leading mode of speciation, and was the theoretical underpinning for the theory of punctuated equilibrium.