Othniel Charles Marsh

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Othniel Charles Marsh

Othniel Charles Marsh (born October 29, 1831 in Lockport , New York , † March 18, 1899 in New Haven , Connecticut ) was one of the outstanding paleontologists of the 19th century and a pioneer of dinosaur research . He discovered, described and named numerous fossils, particularly from the western United States.

Live and act

Marsh was born in Lockport, New York in 1831. Since his mother died when he was only three years old, he received long financial support from his uncle, George Peabody , and at the age of 21 received the dowry allotted for his mother. These funds made Marsh's education possible. In 1860 he graduated from Yale College . He studied geology and mineralogy at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale College and paleontology and anatomy in Berlin , Heidelberg and Breslau . Upon his return in 1866, he became the first professor in the United States of vertebrate paleontology at Yale College. He convinced George Peabody to found the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University, where he had been appointed curator from 1867, along with Addison E. Verrill and George J. Brush .

In 1871 he found the first remains of extinct horses and later published a horse family tree, which can be found in almost every biology textbook today. In 1874 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences , in 1875 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In May 1897, Marsh found the first American pterosaur fossils . Marsh described fossil birds e.g. B. the toothed birds from the American Upper Cretaceous such as Ichthyornis and Hesperornis , airworthy reptiles, dinosaurs from the Cretaceous and Jurassic including Apatosaurus and Allosaurus . In total, he described 25 new genera of dinosaurs and built one of the largest collections of fossils in the world.

1883–1895 he was President of the National Academy of Sciences . From 1883 he was a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and from 1898 of the Académie des Sciences .

The inheritance from George Peabody, preserved in 1869, was used by Marsh to build a building that now houses the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies at Yale University.

A dinosaur discovered by Marsh in 1877 and mistakenly identified as a Nanosaurus was renamed Othnielia in his honor 100 years later . The Marshosaurus dinosaur also bears his name.

Marsh is buried in Grove Street Cemetery, New Haven, Connecticut.

Bone Wars

Marsh sparked, albeit inadvertently, the feud known as Bone Wars with Edward Drinker Cope . Both were initially on friendly terms after they first met in Berlin in 1863. But tensions already arose in Haddonfield , where the first dinosaurs were found in North America and both scientists were looking for fossils in the marl pits. The following event is often named as the starting point of the feud. During the reconstruction of the Elasmosaurus discovered by Cope in 1868, he made a mistake: He placed the skull on the end of the tail of the animal. Seeing the mistake, Marsh began to laugh. Cope was of the opinion that he would be blamed for forever. It is believed that this incident sparked the feud. A fierce battle over dinosaur fossils developed. Each of them wanted to be the best and even each other's excavations were sabotaged. Important finds were destroyed out of pure hatred so as not to fall into the hands of the other. In the end, it was Marsh's larger financial resources that made the difference.

Fonts

  • About two lines of praise at Ceratiten. In: Journal of the German Geological Society. XVII, Monthly Reports, 1865, pp. 267-269.
  • See also: OC Marsh Papers

Web links

Commons : Othniel Charles Marsh  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carl von Voit : Othniel Charles Marsh (obituary) . In: Meeting reports of the mathematical-physical class of the KB Academy of Sciences in Munich . Issue 1, 1900, pp. 384–388 ( online [PDF; accessed March 11, 2017]).
  2. ^ List of members since 1666: Letter M. Académie des sciences, accessed on January 19, 2020 (French).
personal data
SURNAME Marsh, Othniel Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American paleontologist
DATE OF BIRTH October 29, 1831
PLACE OF BIRTH Lockport , New York
DATE OF DEATH March 18, 1899
Place of death New Haven , Connecticut