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Richard Owen

Sir Richard Owen was an English biologist, comparative anatomist and palaeontologist. Owen is generally considered to have been an outstanding naturalist with a remarkable gift for interpreting fossils.

Mary Anning

Mary Anning was an English fossil collector, dealer, and palaeontologist. She became known internationally for her discoveries in Jurassic marine fossil beds in the cliffs along the English Channel at Lyme Regis in the county of Dorset, South West England. Anning's findings contributed to changes in scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth.

Barnum Brown

Barnum Brown, commonly referred to as Mr. Bones, was an American paleontologist. He discovered the first documented remains of Tyrannosaurus during a career that made him one of the most famous fossil hunters working from the late Victorian era into the early 20th century.

Jack Horner (paleontologist)

John Robert Horner is an American paleontologist best known for his research on non-avian dinosaurs. Horner has made a career as a researcher and teacher, having worked at various scientific institutions regardless of an initial lack of a university-level degree. In 1979, Horner described the duck-billed dinosaur Maiasaura alongside fellow paleontologist Bob Makela, based off juvenile remains — at that time unheard of in the western hemisphere — found at a site in Montana. This discovery provided the first clear evidence that some non-avian dinosaurs cared for their young.

Roy Chapman Andrews

Roy Chapman Andrews was an American explorer, adventurer, and naturalist who became the director of the American Museum of Natural History. He led a series of expeditions through the politically disturbed Mongolia of the early 20th century into the Gobi Desert and Mongolia. The expeditions made important discoveries and brought the first-known fossil dinosaur eggs to the museum. Chapman's popular writing about his adventures made him famous.

Edward Drinker Cope

Edward Drinker Cope was an American zoologist, paleontologist, comparative anatomist, herpetologist, and ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker family, he distinguished himself as a child prodigy interested in science, publishing his first scientific paper at the age of 19. Though his father tried to raise Cope as a gentleman farmer, he eventually acquiesced to his son's scientific aspirations.

Othniel Charles Marsh

Othniel Charles Marsh was an American professor of paleontology. A prolific fossil collector, Marsh was one of the preeminent paleontologists of the nineteenth century. Among his legacies are the discovery or description of dozens of new species—including Stegosaurus and Triceratops—and theories on the origins of birds. He spent his academic career at Yale College and was president of the National Academy of Sciences.

Robert T. Bakker

Robert Thomas Bakker is an American paleontologist who helped reshape modern theories about dinosaurs, particularly by adding support to the theory that some dinosaurs were endothermic (warm-blooded). Along with his mentor John Ostrom, Bakker was responsible for initiating the ongoing "dinosaur renaissance" in paleontological studies, beginning with Bakker's article "Dinosaur Renaissance" in the April 1975 issue of Scientific American. His specialty is the ecological context and behavior of dinosaurs.

Paul Sereno

Paul Callistus Sereno is a professor of paleontology at the University of Chicago who has discovered several new dinosaur species on several continents, including at sites in Inner Mongolia, Argentina, Morocco and Niger. One of his widely publicized discoveries includes a nearly complete specimen of Sarcosuchus imperator commonly referred to as SuperCroc, sail-backed spinosaurids Suchomimusand Spinosaurus.Widely publicized archaeological finds were made at Gobero, a site he discovered preserving intact burials from prehistoric cultures living in a formerly Green Sahara.

Quiz

Paleontologists