John Ostrom

John H. Ostrom (February 18, 1928 – July 16, 2005) was an American paleontologist who revolutionized modern understanding of dinosaurs in the 1960s, when he demonstrated that dinosaurs are more like big non-flying birds than they are like lizards (or "saurians"), an idea first proposed by Thomas Henry Huxley in the 1860s, but which had garnered few supporters. The first of Ostrom's broad-based reviews of the osteology and phylogeny of the primitive bird Archaeopteryx appeared in 1976. His reaction to the eventual discovery of feathered dinosaurs in China, after years of acrimonoius debate, was bittersweet (Gentile, 2000).

Related Topics:
February 18 - 1928 - July 16 - 2005 - American - Paleontologist - Dinosaur - 1960s - Bird - Lizard - Thomas Henry Huxley - Osteology - Phylogeny - Archaeopteryx - Feathered dinosaurs - China - Gentile, 2000

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Ostrom was a professor at Yale University where he was the Curator Emeritus of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History, which has an impressive fossil collection originally started by Othniel Charles Marsh. He died from complications of Alzheimer's disease at the age of 77 in Litchfield, Connecticut.

Related Topics:
Yale University - Vertebrate Paleontology - Peabody Museum of Natural History - Othniel Charles Marsh - Alzheimer's disease - Litchfield, Connecticut

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