Who is Othniel Charles Marsh?

Othniel Charles Marsh, M.A., Ph.D., LL.D., (October 29, 1831 – March 18, 1899) was one of the pre-eminent paleontologists of the 19th century, who discovered and named many fossils found in the American West.

Biography
Early life
Marsh was born in Lockport, New York, in the United States into a family of modest means. However, he was the nephew of the very wealthy banker and philanthropist, George Peabody. He graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover in 1856 and Yale College in 1860.

He later studied geology and mineralogy in the Sheffield Scientific School, New Haven, and afterwards paleontology and anatomy in Berlin, Heidelberg and Breslau. He returned to the United States in 1866 and was appointed professor of vertebrate paleontology at Yale University. He persuaded his uncle George Peabody to establish the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale.

Career
Marsh and his many fossil hunters were able to uncover about 500 new species of fossil animals, which were all named later by Marsh himself. In May 1871, Marsh uncovered the first pterosaur fossils found in America. He also found early horses, flying reptiles, the Cretaceous and Jurassic dinosaurs; Apatosaurus and Allosaurus, and described the toothed birds of the Cretaceous; Ichthyornis and Hesperornis.

Marsh is also notable for his "Evolution of Horses" theory, which began to be modified only in the 1950s. (Crationists will try to say that the entire "Evolution of Horses" theory has been discredited, but this is not the case. It, like the theory of evolution itself, has only evolved as more fossils have been found.)

Marsh is also known for the Bone Wars waged against Edward Drinker Cope. The two men were fiercely competitive, discovering and documenting more than 120 new species of dinosaur between them. Marsh eventually won the Bone Wars by finding 80 new species of dinosaur, while Cope only found 56.

Death
Marsh died at 9:55am on March 18, 1899. He was interred at the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut.

Legacy
Marsh named the following dinosaur genera:

Allosaurus (1877),
Ammosaurus (1890),
Anchisaurus (1885),
Apatosaurus (1877),
Atlantosaurus (1877),
Barosaurus (1890),
Camptosaurus (1885),
Ceratops (1888),
Ceratosaurus (1884),
Claosaurus (1890),
Coelurus (1879),
Creosaurus (1878),
Diplodocus (1878),
Diracodon (1881),
Dryosaurus (1894),
Dryptosaurus (1877),
Labrosaurus (1896),
Laosaurus (1878),
Nanosaurus (1877),
Nodosaurus (1889),
Ornithomimus (1890),
Pleurocoelus (1891),
Priconodon (1888),
Stegosaurus (1877),
Torosaurus (1891),
Triceratops (1889),
Tripriodon (1889).

He named the suborders
Ceratopsia (1890),
Ceratosauria (1884),
Ornithopoda (1881),
Stegosauria (1877), and
Theropoda.

He also named the families
Allosauridae (1878),
Anchisauridae (1885),
Camptosauridae (1885),
Ceratopsidae (1890),
Ceratosauridae (1884),
Coeluridae (1884),
Diplodocidae (1884),
Dryptosauridae (1890),
Nodosauridae (1890),
Ornithomimidae (1890),
Plateosauridae (1895),
and Stegosauridae (1880).

He also named many individual species of dinosaurs.

The dinosaur Othnielia was named in 1977 by P. Galton as a tribute to Marsh, as was Marshosaurus bicentesmus (Madsen, 1976).

Marsh's finds formed the original core of the collection of Yale's Peabody Museum. The museum's Great Hall is dominated by the first fossil skeleton of Apatosaurus that he discovered (but called "Brontosaurus", unaware that this particular dinosaur had been discovered previously. Apatosaurus is now the official name, but most people ocntinue to call it a brontosaurus).

He donated his home in New Haven, Connecticut, to Yale University in 1899. The Othniel C. Marsh House, now known as Marsh Hall, is designated a National Historic Landmark. The grounds are now known as the Marsh Botanical Garden.