John Ostrom

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**John Harold Ostrom** (February 18, 1928 – July 16, 2005) was an American paleontologist who revolutionized modern understanding of dinosaurs in the 1960s.

As first proposed by Thomas Henry Huxley in the 1860s, Ostrom showed that dinosaurs were more like big non-flying birds than they were like lizards (or "saurians").

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 acrimonious debate, was bittersweet.

## Early life and career

He was born in New York and studied at Union College. He planned to be a physician like his father, but changed his mind after reading George Gaylord Simpson's book *The Meaning of Evolution*. He enrolled at Columbia University and studied with Edwin H. Colbert.

In 1952 he married Nancy Grace Hartman (d. 2003) and he had two daughters: Karen and Alicia.

Ostrom taught for one year at Brooklyn College and then spent five years at Beloit College before going to Yale. 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.

## Key Discoveries

In the field of paleontology, Ostrom is responsible for the following key discoveries:

### Warm-blooded *Deinonychus*

His 1964 discovery of *Deinonychus* is considered one of the most important fossil finds in history. *Deinonychus* was an active predator that clearly killed its prey by leaping and slashing or stabbing with its "terrible claw". Evidence of a truly active lifestyle included long strings of muscle running along the tail, making it a stiff counterbalance for jumping and running. The conclusion that at least some dinosaurs had a high metabolism, and were thus in some cases warm-blooded, was popularized by his student Robert T. Bakker. This helped to change the impression of dinosaurs as the sluggish, slow, cold-blooded lizards which had prevailed since the turn of the century.

This changed how dinosaurs are depicted by both professional dinosaur illustrators, and in the public eye. The find is also credited with triggering the "dinosaur renaissance", a term coined in a 1975 issue of *Scientific American* by Bakker to describe the renewed debates causing an influx of interest in paleontology, which has lasted from the 1970s to the present and has doubled recorded dinosaur diversity.

### *Archaeopteryx* and the origin of flight, and hadrosaur herds

Ostrom's interest in the dinosaur-bird connection started with his study of what is now known as the Haarlem *Archaeopteryx*. Discovered in 1855, it was actually the first specimen recovered but, incorrectly labeled as *Pterodactylus crassipes*, it languished in the Teylers Museum in the Netherlands until Ostrom's 1970 paper (and 1972 description) correctly identified it as one of only eight "first birds" (counting the solitary feather).

Ostrom's reading of fossilized *Hadrosaurus* trackways also led him to the conclusion that these duckbilled dinosaurs traveled in herds.

## Cultural Influence

John Ostrom's work on the functional morphology of dinosaurs found that the claws, and tendon scars in the tail would indicate a running position. And so the whole posture of bipedal dinosaurs changed to one of an agile, fast-running, fearsome predators. This inspird a new generation of dinosaur movies and also museums worldwide changed their dinosaur bone displays.

In 1966 John H. Ostrom was instrumental in the establishment of Dinosaur State Park in Rocky Hill, Connecticut ("because the governor was besieged by letters from schoolchildren swayed into dino-mania by Ostrom").

## Dinosaur Dig Sites

John Ostrom set up a full-time dig site at the Big Horn Basin, Wyoming in the 1960s, as well he spent a lot of time digging at Rocky Hill.

## Scientific classification

In 1970 John Ostrom gave Microvenator celer its formal name (meaning "small hunter").
Also in 1970 he named Tenontosaurus tilletti (meaning tendon lizard)

In 1998 Catherine Forster named a fossil Rahonavis ostromi (meaning "Ostrom's menace from the clouds") in honour of John Ostrom. The fossil is that of a primitive winged creature with a two-foot wingspan, feathers and a sickle-shaped claw on its second toe designed for slashing prey, similar to Deinonychus and Archaeopteryx.

## References

Notes

1. ↑ Fedduccia, Alan 1999. *The origin and evolution of birds*. Yale University Press, p55. ISBN 0-300-07861-7
2. ↑ Heilmann G. 1926. *The origin of birds*. London: Witherby.
3. ↑ At last, his theory flies. May 5, 2000. Olivia F. Gentile. *Hartford Courant*.
4. ↑ Dromaeosauridae

Sources
* Template:Wayback. May 1975. John H. Ostrom. *Discovery*, volume 11, number 1, pages 15 to 23.
* Obituary Los Angeles Times July 21, 2005

## External links

* Dinosaurs in Your Garden

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