biography
| name: |
Marsh, O(thniel) C(harles)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1831–99)
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| biography:
| Palaeontologist, born in Lockport, New York, USA. He was educated at Yale and Yale's Sheffield School, and in Germany. A palaeontology professor at Yale (1866–99) and chief vertebrate palaeontologist of the US Geological Survey (1882–92), he discovered more than 1000 fossil vertebrates on expeditions to the W territories, amassing extensive collections for Yale's Peabody Museum. He helped establish and popularize the new science of vertebrate palaeontology, and his classification and descriptions of extinct vertebrates helped confirm Darwinian theories of evolution and occasioned a fierce rivalry with Edward Drinker Cope. He described the earliest mammals then known, 80 new species of dinosaurs and the first fossil serpents and flying reptiles found in W America. He also established the reptilian origin of birds, and established both the evolution of the horse and the presence of early primates in North America. Among his publications are Introduction and Succession of Vertebrate Life in America (1877) and The Dinosaurs of North America (1896). He was president of the National Academy of Sciences (1883–95). |
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