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.

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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

See also

• List of well-known paleoanthropologists
• List of geologists

Web links

• Proctor Museum of Natural Science - Table of Biographies