Othniel Marsh

After receiving an inheritance of US$100,000 from his uncle, <a title="George Peabody" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Peabody">George Peabody</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othniel_Charles_Marsh#cite_note-king-of-the-dino-hunters-1">[1]</a>:13 Marsh and his many fossil hunters were able to uncover about 500 new species of fossil animals, which were all named later by Marsh himself in the almost 400 scientific articles he published during his career.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othniel_Charles_Marsh#cite_note-king-of-the-dino-hunters-1">[1]</a>:13 In May 1871, Marsh uncovered the first <a title="Pterosaur" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pterosaur">pterosaur</a> fossils found in America. He also found early <a title="Horse" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horse">horses</a>, flying reptiles, <a title="Cretaceous" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous">Cretaceous</a> and <a title="Jurassic" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic">Jurassic</a> dinosaurs such as <a title="Triceratops" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triceratops">Triceratops</a>, <a title="Stegosaurus" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stegosaurus">Stegosaurus</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othniel_Charles_Marsh#cite_note-king-of-the-dino-hunters-1">[1]</a>:13 <a title="Brontosaurus" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brontosaurus">Brontosaurus</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othniel_Charles_Marsh#cite_note-king-of-the-dino-hunters-1">[1]</a>:13 <a title="Apatosaurus" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatosaurus">Apatosaurus</a> and <a title="Allosaurus" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allosaurus">Allosaurus</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othniel_Charles_Marsh#cite_note-king-of-the-dino-hunters-1">[1]</a>:13 and described the toothed birds of the <a title="Cretaceous" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous">Cretaceous</a> <a title="Ichthyornis" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthyornis">Ichthyornis</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othniel_Charles_Marsh#cite_note-Ichthyornis-5">[5]</a> and <a title="Hesperornis" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperornis">Hesperornis</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othniel_Charles_Marsh#cite_note-Hesperornis-6">[6</a>

Where Cope was a neo-Lamarckian -- a believer in the inheritance of acquired traits -- Marsh was one of the first American converts to Darwin's theory of evolution. As it turned out, he also gathered an immense amount of data to support it. Darwin's book Origin of Species was published in 1859, during Marsh's senior year at Yale. In 1862 and 1865, Marsh traveled to England, where he met scientists such as Charles Lyell, Thomas Henry Huxley, and Charles Darwin himself. Marsh later wrote of Huxley as a "guide, philosopher, and friend, almost from the time I made the choice of science as my life work."

Marsh's enormous collection of fossils enabled him to fill in a number of the gaps in the fossil record that were troublesome for supporters of Darwinian evolution. His descriptions in the 1870s of Cretaceous toothed birds such as Ichthyornis and Hesperornis, coming right on the heels of the discovery of Archaeopteryx, filled in a major gap in the early history of birds. In 1877, Marsh proposed the theory that birds were descended from dinosaurs, following Thomas Henry Huxley. Later, in 1881, Marsh suggested a close affinity between birds and coelurosaurs (small carnivorous dinosaurs):
<a id="null" class="null" href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/marsh.html">http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/marsh.html</a>

Othniel Marsh

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