O.C. Marsh

From EvoWiki

Othniel C. Marsh (1831-1899), of Yale University, was perhaps the single most influential American vertebrate paleontologist of the 19th Century. His credentials were sterling, and his accomplishments, astounding both in their volume and import. Marsh came from humble beginnings, born on a farm in Lockport, New York in 1831. Marsh was intelligent, and productive as a scientist, though in both of these regards it is questionable if he was a match for the truly gifted E.D. Cope of Philadelphia, with whom Marsh would have a life-long rivalry. Marsh, unlike Cope, was a superb politician, and equipped with a great deal of social acumen, such that he was far more skilled at gaining goverment grants from the USGS, and his list of administrative posts throughout his career further underscores these points: president of the NAS from 1883-1895, Vertebrate Paleontologist of the USGS from 1882-1892, and honoray Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology of the Smithsonian, a title granted in 1886. Some of Marsh's most noteworthy scientific accomplishments include naming and describing Triceratops, the quintessential dinosaur with which all children are fascinated, naming Ceratopsia, describing Theropoda, and recovering and describing the marvelous remains of Hesperornis regalis and Ichthyornis dispar from the Upper Cretaceous Niobrara chalk beds of Kansas (published in a gorgeous monograph in 1880). Marsh was also an early defender of the theropod origin of birds (see Marsh 1877), and had a penchant for Mesozoic mammals. He is still rightly regarded as something of a legend in vertebrate paleontology.