List of paleontologists
The following is a list of eminent paleontologists who have prominent positions in paleontology . Its importance lies, among other things, in its role in the history of paleontology, as an author of paleontological articles and books, or in its fame as a paleontologist.
Surname | year | meaning | ||
Louis Agassiz | 1807-1873 | Swiss-American polymath, important work in the field of ichthyology | ||
Roy Chapman Andrews | 1884-1960 | American researcher , adventurer and paleontologist, best known for his expeditions to the Gobi Desert and Mongolia at the beginning of the 20th century, which among other things resulted in the discovery of the first known fossil dinosaur egg . | ||
Nikolai Ivanovich Andrussow | 1861-1924 | Russian geologist and paleontologist, extensive stratigraphic-paleontological research in the Black Sea , North Caucasus and Caspian Sea regions | ||
Mary Anning | 1799-1847 | One of the most important figures in early paleontology. She discovered numerous species for the first time, including the first complete skeleton of an Ichthyosaurus . | ||
Giovanni Arduino | 1714-1795 | Italian geologist, considered the father of Italian geology, coined the terms primary ( Paleozoic and older), secondary ( Mesozoic ) and tertiary . Arduino recognized the importance of fossils in determining the age of rocks. | ||
Andrew Geddes Bain | 1797-1864 | British geologist of Scottish descent, known as the father of the geology of South Africa, made significant fossil discoveries in the main Karoo basin and created the first geological map of South Africa. | ||
Robert T. Bakker | * 1945 | American paleontologist and dinosaur painter. Researched the way of life of some species of dinosaurs and was the first to believe that dinosaurs might have had feathers . | ||
Joachim Barrande | 1799-1883 | French geologist, paleontologist and engineer. Pioneer of research on the Prague Mulde and specialist in the fossils of the Silurian and Ordovician . | ||
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach | 1752-1840 | German zoologist and anthropologist, is considered an essential founder of zoology and anthropology | ||
Robert Broom | 1866-1951 | South African doctor and paleontologist, known for his studies of mammal-like reptiles ( Therapsida ) and discoverer of various fossils of Australopithecus africanus (including Mrs. Ples ) and Paranthropus robustus | ||
Barnum Brown | 1873-1963 | an American paleontologist. He is considered one of the most famous "dinosaur hunters" of the 20th century. He found the first documented fossil of the Tyrannosaurus rex and excavated other new genera in the American West on behalf of the American Museum of Natural History (including Ankylosaurus in 1908 , Hypacrosaurus in 1913 and Corythosaurus in 1914 ). | ||
Christian Leopold von Buch | 1774-1853 | German geologist and paleontologist, creator of the term Leitfossil and one of the founders of stratigraphy | ||
William Buckland | 1784-1856 | English geologist and paleontologist, first descriptor of Megalosaurus | ||
Edward Drinker Cope | 1840-1897 | an American scientist who worked in many zoological fields, such as: B. the taxonomy of extinct vertebrates and paleontology, ichthyology (ichthyology), herpetology and mammalogy (mammalology), the theory of evolution and, last but not least, comparative anatomy. During the bone wars triggered by his former friend and colleague (but later bitter rival) Othniel Charles Marsh, Cope discovered numerous new species of dinosaurs such as B. Monoclonius (1876), Camarasaurus (1877) and Coelophysis (1889). | ||
Georges Cuvier | 1769-1832 | French naturalist, is considered the scientific founder of paleontology. One of his main areas of work were the fossils of the Paris Basin | ||
Edgar Dacqué | 1878-1945 | Theosophical evolutionist , professor of palaeontology at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and head of the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology | ||
Raymond Dart | 1893-1988 | Discoverer of the " child of Taung ", a fossil pre- human skull | ||
Charles Darwin | 1809-1882 | British naturalist, go significant contributions to him evolutionary theory back | ||
George Mercer Dawson | 1849-1901 | Canadian geographer, geodesist and paleontologist. Explorers of the geology of Canada and discoverer of the first dinosaur fossils in Canada | ||
Louis Dollo | 1857-1931 | French-born Belgian paleontologist and head of the excavations of the famous Iguanodon fauna of Bernissart . See also Dollosche's law | ||
Zhiming Dong | * 1937 | Chinese expert known as excavator of dinosaur fossils in China, specifically sauropods such as Shunosaurus (1983) and Datousaurus (1984). | ||
Tilly Edinger | 1897-1967 | Founder of paleoneurology , the study of fossil brain prints | ||
Dianne Edwards | * 1942 | British paleobotanist with a research focus on British plant fossils, in particular the fossils of the Rhynie Cherts | ||
Richard Fortey | * 1946 | British paleontologist, editor of the Treatise on Intervertebrate Paleontology on trilobites, specializes in ordovician graptolites and trilobites | ||
Eberhard Fraas | 1862-1915 | German paleontologist who described dinosaurs such as Procompsognathus (1913), among other things . | ||
Oscar Fraas | 1824-1897 | |||
Jens Lorenz Franzen | 1937-2018 | |||
Hanns Bruno Geinitz | 1814-1900 | German paleontologist and geologist, numerous first scientific descriptions of fossils | ||
Stephen Jay Gould | 1941-2002 | |||
Ernst Haeckel | 1834-1919 | |||
Bernhard Hauff | 1866-1950 | important German palaeontologist and taxidermist from Holzmaden / Teck. Founder of the Urweltmuseum Hauff | ||
Oswald Heer | 1809-1883 | |||
Edward B. Hitchcock | 1793-1864 | |||
Arthur Holmes | 1890-1965 | |||
Jack Horner | * 1946 | |||
Friedrich von Huene | 1875-1969 | a German vertebrate paleontologist who was the foremost expert on fossil reptiles in Europe in the early 20th century, describing more species of dinosaurs than any other European at the time. He published the description of dinosaur species such as Saltopus (1910), Proceratosaurus (1926), Antarctosaurus (1929) or Indosuchus (1933). Von Huene coined some important higher taxa like the infraorder Prosauropoda (1920) and the suborder Sauropodomorpha (1932). | ||
Thomas Henry Huxley | 1825-1895 | a British biologist, educational organizer and main exponent of agnosticism, whose term he coined and established. As an influential supporter of David Hume's empiricism and Charles Darwin's theory of evolution (which led to his nickname Darwin's Bulldog), in addition to his own extensive research, textbooks, and essays, he had a major impact on the development of the natural sciences in the 19th century. | ||
James Hutton | 1726-1797 | Scottish naturalist, early sedimentological research, founder of geochronology | ||
Otto Jaekel | 1863-1929 | |||
Werner Janensch | 1878-1969 | Werner Janensch was one of the outstanding German vertebrate paleontologists of the first half of the 20th century and, along with Friedrich von Huene, probably the most important German dinosaur specialist. He named, among other things, the dinosaur species Brachiosaurus brancai (1914; today Giraffatitan ), Dicraeosaurus (1914) and Elaphrosaurus (1920). | ||
Donald Johanson | * 1943 | |||
Johann Jakob Kaup | 1803-1873 | |||
Arthur Lakes | 1844-1917 | |||
Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck | 1744-1829 | |||
Louis Leakey | 1903-1972 | |||
Joseph Leidy | 1823-1891 | |||
Richard Swann Lull | 1867-1957 | |||
Charles Lyell | 1797-1875 | |||
Gideon Mantell | 1790-1852 | an English physician, geologist, and paleontologist who is credited with first recognizing fossils as derived from dinosaurs. | ||
Othniel Charles Marsh | 1831-1899 | one of the outstanding palaeontologists of the 19th century and pioneer of dinosaur research. He discovered, described and named numerous fossils, particularly from the western United States, including Allosaurus , Apatosaurus , Stegosaurus (all 1877), Diplodocus (1878), Ceratosaurus (1884) and Triceratops (1889). Marsh sparked, if unintentionally, what became known as the "Bone Wars" feud with Edward Drinker Cope. During the reconstruction of the plesiosaur Elasmosaurus , discovered by Cope in 1868, he made a mistake: He placed the skull on the end of the tail of the animal. | ||
Erlend Martini | * 1932 | |||
Hermann von Meyer | 1801-1869 | |||
Stanley Miller | 1930-2007 | |||
Anna Boleslawowna Missuna | 1868-1922 | |||
Johann August Edmund Mojsisovics | 1839-1907 | Austrian palaeontologist, work in the Eastern Alps, the Mediterranean and Hungary, description of Triassic fossils | ||
Simon Conway Morris | * 1951 | |||
Arno Hermann Müller | 1916-2004 | |||
Roderick Murchison | 1792-1871 | Scottish geologist and paleontologist, fundamental work on the stratigraphy of the Paleozoic Era | ||
Melchior Neumayr | 1845-1890 | Austrian paleontologist, created and headed the world's first palaeontological institute in Vienna, put on a large paleontological collection | ||
Franz von Nopcsa | 1877-1933 | Austrian paleontologist, researched dinosaur finds in Transylvania, contribution to the geological exploration of Albania | ||
Alexander Ivanovich Oparin | 1894-1980 | Soviet biochemist, researching the origin of life on earth | ||
Alcide Dessalines d'Orbigny | 1802-1857 | |||
Henry Fairfield Osborn | 1857-1935 | an American geologist, paleontologist, and eugenicist. Osborn described and named some of the most famous dinosaurs, including Ornitholestes (1903), Tyrannosaurus rex (1905), Pentaceratops (1923) and Velociraptor (1924). Until his death he was one of the world's most influential anthropologists and paleoanthropologists. | ||
John H. Ostrom | 1928-2005 | an American paleontologist who was one of the most important vertebrate palaeontologists of the second half of the 20th century and who had a decisive influence on dinosaur research in particular. His greatest achievements included the theory of the warm-bloodedness of dinosaurs and the revival of the theory that birds descended from them. His discovery of the dinosaur genus Deinonychus , which he named in 1969, also contributed to this. | ||
Albert Oppel | 1831-1865 | |||
Richard Owen | 1804-1892 | a British zoologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist who gave their name to dinosaurs in 1842. | ||
Christian Heinrich Pander | 1794-1865 | Baltic German physician, recognized the importance of conodonts for stratigraphy | ||
Elizabeth Philpot | 1780-1857 | British paleontologist and collector | ||
Henry Potonié | 1857-1913 | German paleobotanist, studies on the origin of coal and lignite, author of a textbook on paleobotany | ||
Friedrich August von Quenstedt | 1809-1889 | German palaeontologist, geologist and crystallographer, Quenstedt structure of the fine layers of the Jura and standard work on this section | ||
Friedrich Rolle | 1827-1887 | |||
Alfred Sherwood Romer | 1894-1973 | |||
Karl Franzewitsch Rouillier | 1814-1858 | Russian paleontologist and geologist, research on biostratigraphy in the Russian tablet , merits in popularizing geological history in the population of Russia | ||
Gaston de Saporta | 1823-1895 | |||
Otto Heinrich Schindewolf | 1896-1971 | |||
Ernst Friedrich von Schlotheim | 1764-1832 | German geologist and paleontologist, founder of scientific palaeobotany , basics of key fossil science | ||
Harry Govier Seeley | 1839-1909 | |||
Adolf Seilacher | 1925-2014 | |||
Paul Sereno | * 1957 | an American paleontologist who published the first scientific description of a number of dinosaurs and other extinct vertebrates. With the establishment of higher taxa, he also gave important impulses for the modern understanding of the relationships between these animals. | ||
George Gaylord Simpson | 1902-1985 | |||
William Smith | 1769-1839 | |||
Nicolaus Steno | 1638-1686 | |||
Charles Mortram Sternberg | 1885-1981 | Son of Charles Hazelius Sternberg (1850-1943), who worked for Edward Drinker Cope and from 1912 to 1917 excavated dinosaurs in Alberta for the Geological Survey of Canada, particularly in the Drumheller region. Sternberg went to Canada in 1912 with his father and his two brothers George F. Sternberg (1883-1969) and Levi Sternberg (1894-1976), who also did dinosaur excavations. They helped found the Calgary Zoo. In 1919, Charles M. Sternberg succeeded Lawrence M. Lambe as head of paleontology at the Geological Survey of Canada. | ||
Kaspar Maria von Sternberg | 1761-1838 | Austrian polymath, co-founder of modern palaeobotany , initiator of the Fatherland Museum of the Kingdom of Bohemia in Prague | ||
Ernst Stromer von Reichenbach | 1871-1952 | a German paleontologist and one of the most important dinosaur researchers. He discovered and described Spinosaurus (1915), Carcharodontosaurus (1931) and Aegyptosaurus (1932). | ||
Eduard Suess | 1831-1914 | Austrian paleontologist and geologist, described and coined the terms Tethys Ocean and Gondwana | ||
Heinz Tobien | 1911-1993 | |||
Charles Doolittle Walcott | 1850-1927 | |||
Gotthelf Fischer von Waldheim | 1771-1853 | German zoologist, anatomist, entomologist, paleontologist, geologist and librarian. | ||
Johannes Weigelt | 1890-1948 | |||
Peter Wellnhofer | * 1936 | |||
Jost Wiedmann | 1936-1993 | |||
Harry Blackmore Whittington | 1916-2010 | |||
John Woodward | 1668-1728 | |||
Zhou Zhonghe | * 1965 | Chinese paleontologist. He is one of the first to describe the fossil remains of the primeval bird Confuciusornis. | ||
Karl Alfred von Zittel | 1839-1904 | German geologist and paleontologist |