Biography

Robert Gess has more than 30 years of experience in palaeontological research in the Eastern Cape, covering all geological units. He is currently South Africa’s primary researcher on South African Devonian early vertebrates (fish and early tetrapods), Palaeoecology and Palaeobotany. He is passionate about exploring the reciprocal relationship between ecological change and evolution. One of his principal projects has been the excavation and description of the high-latitude Late Devonian Waterloo Farm estuarine lagerstätte outside Makhanda (Grahamstown), from which he and colleagues have described 23 new taxa, from the world’s oldest lampreys to Africa’s earliest tetrapods, terrestrial invertebrates, algae and plants.