Marsh, O. C.

Marsh, O. C. (Othniel Charles)

(1831–99) paleontologist; born in Lockport, N.Y. He was educated at Yale and Yale's Sheffield School and in Germany. A paleontology professor at Yale (1866–99) and chief vertebrate paleontologist of the U.S. Geological Survey (1882–92), he discovered more than 1,000 fossil vertebrates on expeditions to the western territories, amassing extensive collections for Yale's Peabody Museum. Marsh helped establish and popularize the new science of vertebrate paleontology; 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 western America; he established the reptilian origin of birds; and he established both the evolution of the horse and the presence of early primates in North America. His publications include "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).