Yale College (BA, MA) University of Berlin Heidelberg University University of Breslau
Awards
Bigsby Medal (1877)
Scientific career
Fields
Paleontology
Institutions
Yale University
Signature
Othniel Charles Marsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was an American professor of Paleontology in Yale College and President of the National Academy of Sciences. He was one of the preeminent scientists in the field of paleontology. Among his legacies are the discovery or description of dozens of new species and theories on the origins of birds.
Born into a modest family, Marsh was able to afford higher education thanks to the generosity of his wealthy uncle George Peabody. After graduating from Yale College in 1860 he travelled the world, studying anatomy, mineralogy and geology. He obtained a teaching position at Yale upon his return. From the 1870s to 1890s, he competed with rival paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope in a period of frenzied Western American expeditions known as the Bone Wars. Marsh's greatest legacy is the collection of Mesozoic reptiles, Cretaceous birds, and Mesozoic and Tertiary mammals that now constitute the backbone of the collections of Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution. Marsh has been called "both a superb paleontologist and the greatest proponent of Darwinism in nineteenth-century America."[1]
^McCarren 1993, p. 1.
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OthnielCharlesMarsh (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was an American professor of Paleontology in Yale College and President of the National Academy...
Johnson then attempts to join Prof. OthnielCharlesMarsh on his yearly expedition fossil hunting in the Badlands. Marsh is reluctant until Johnson lies,...
described and named by OthnielCharlesMarsh in 1877. The taxon has a complicated taxonomic history, largely the work of Marsh and Peter M. Galton, involving...
Drinker Cope (of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia) and OthnielCharlesMarsh (of the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale). Each of the...
continent, including Antarctica. The name Sauropoda was coined by OthnielCharlesMarsh in 1878, and is derived from Ancient Greek, meaning "lizard foot"...
Late Jurassic period. It was described by American paleontologist OthnielCharlesMarsh in 1879, the type species being dubbed B. excelsus, based on a partial...
taxonomic group, having been first named by the American paleontologist OthnielCharlesMarsh in 1878. Allosaurids are characterized by an astragalus with a restriction...
In 1888 and 1889, OthnielCharlesMarsh described the first well preserved horned dinosaurs, Ceratops and Triceratops. In 1890 Marsh classified them together...
Cimolodontidae was named by OthnielCharlesMarsh in 1889 and is part of the suborder Cimolodonta within the superfamily Ptilodontoidea. Marsh (1889), "Discovery...
the informal suborder of "Plagiaulacida". The family was named by OthnielCharlesMarsh in 1889. Two genera are recognized: Ctenacodon and Psalodon. Kielan-Jaworowska...
Cimolodonta and family Cimolomyidae. The genus Cimolomys was named by OthnielCharlesMarsh in 1889. The species Cimolomys clarki was named by Sahni in 1972...
apparatus. During the Bone Wars between palaeontologists OthnielCharlesMarsh and Edward Drinker Cope, Marsh sent his collector William Harlow Reed to the Cenomanian...
named earlier. The best known of these is E. annectens, named by OthnielCharlesMarsh in 1892. This species was originally as a species of Claosaurus...
of Stegosaurus armatus when Yale paleontologist OthnielCharlesMarsh described them in 1877. Marsh initially believed the remains were from an aquatic...
1863), American Civil War Union colonel OthnielCharlesMarsh (1831–1899), American paleontologist Charles H. Marsh (1840–1867), American Civil War Union...
the genus was first described in 1889 by American paleontologist OthnielCharlesMarsh. Specimens representing life stages from hatchling to adult have...
1877 by OthnielCharlesMarsh. The generic name, derived from Greek διπλόος, diploos, "double", probably refers to the "biconcave vertebrae" Marsh mentions...
southeastern Wyoming. Hatcher's employer, paleontologist Professor OthnielCharlesMarsh, coined the genus Torosaurus for them. The name Torosaurus is frequently...
ascribed to this genus were described in 1877 by famed paleontologist OthnielCharlesMarsh. As one of the first well-known theropod dinosaurs, it has long...
nearly-complete skeleton was discovered in the United States. Professor OthnielCharlesMarsh that year classified such specimens in the new genus Stegosaurus...
dinosaur that lived in North America during the Late Jurassic period. OthnielCharlesMarsh described and named the first-known species, A. ajax, in 1877, and...
period of scientific rivalry between him and OthnielCharlesMarsh known as the Bone Wars. Soon after, Marsh named a genus Morosaurus, but it was subsequently...
coelurosaurs, at least) feathers. O. C. Marsh coined the name Theropoda (meaning "beast feet") in 1881. Marsh initially named Theropoda as a suborder...
found the remains of a small euornithopod. That same year Professor OthnielCharlesMarsh described and named the find as Camptonotus, or "flexible back"...
Multituberculata. Ctenacodon, also known as Allodon (Marsh 1881), was named by OthnielCharlesMarsh in 1879. At least three species are currently recognized...
described in 1876 by OthnielCharlesMarsh, based on fragmentary material, holotype YPM 1178, from the Smoky Hill River site in Kansas. Marsh referred the specimen...
philanthropist George Peabody in 1866 at the behest of his nephew OthnielCharlesMarsh, an early paleontologist. The museum is best known for the Great...
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