Author: J. B. (John Bell) Hatcher
Born: 1861
Died: 1904
Bio: John Bell Hatcher was an American paleontologist who discovered the Torosaurus and Triceratops dinosaurs. He grew up in Iowa and became interested in paleontology while working as a coal miner. He studied geology, mineralogy, zoology, and botany at Yale and graduated in 1884. He was hired by paleontologist Othniel Marsh and developed a system to record excavation locations, which became the basis of Taphonomy. He left Yale due to publishing restrictions and worked for the Peabody Museum of Natural History and Princeton University, where he authored 11 publications and planned expeditions to Patagonia. He became the curator of paleontology and osteology for the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in 1900 and was responsible for the investigation and display of Diplodocus carnegii. Hatcher died before completing a monograph on Ceratopsia, but he is memorialized in the names of a South American lizard and a notoungulate.