The quadrate bone is a skull bone in most tetrapods, including amphibians, sauropsids, and early synapsids.
John Harold Ostrom was an American paleontologist who revolutionized modern understanding of dinosaurs during the 1960s, inspiring a "dinosaur renaissance" alongside his pupil Robert T. Bakker.
Robert "Bob" Lynn Carroll was an American–Canadian vertebrate paleontologist who specialised in Paleozoic and Mesozoic amphibians and reptiles.
Oliver Perry Hay was an American herpetologist, ichthyologist, and paleontologist.
Nicholas Hotton III was an American paleontologist renowned as an expert on dinosaurs and reptiles.
James Ray Dixon was professor emeritus and curator emeritus of amphibians and reptiles at the Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collection at Texas A&M University. He lived in El Campo, Texas throughout most of his childhood. He published prolifically on the subject of herpetology in his distinguished career, authoring and co-authoring several books, book chapters, and numerous peer reviewed notes and articles, describing two new genera, and many new species, earning him a reputation as one of the most prominent herpetologists of his generation. His main research focus was morphology based systematics of amphibians and reptiles worldwide with emphasis on Texas, US, Mexico, Central America, and South America, although bibliographies, conservation, ecology, life history and zoogeography have all been the subjects of his extensive publications.
Roger Conant was an American herpetologist, author, educator and conservationist. He was Director Emeritus of the Philadelphia Zoo and adjunct professor at the University of New Mexico. He wrote one of the first comprehensive field guides for North American reptiles in 1958 entitled: A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America, in the Peterson Field Guide series.
Karl Patterson Schmidt was an American herpetologist.
Charles Whitney Gilmore was an American paleontologist who gained renown in the early 20th century for his work on vertebrate fossils during his career at the United States National Museum. Gilmore named many dinosaurs in North America and Mongolia, including the Cretaceous sauropod Alamosaurus, Alectrosaurus, Archaeornithomimus, Bactrosaurus, Brachyceratops, Chirostenotes, Mongolosaurus, Parrosaurus, Pinacosaurus, Styracosaurus ovatus and Thescelosaurus.
Hans-Dieter Sues is a German-born American paleontologist who is Senior Scientist and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.
Xiaoming Wang is a Chinese-born American vertebrate paleontologist and geologist who lives and teaches in the United States.
J. Whitfield "Whit" Gibbons is an American herpetologist, author, and educator. He is Professor Emeritus of Ecology, University of Georgia, and former Head of the Environmental Outreach and Education program at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory (SREL).
Eugene S. Gaffney is an American paleontologist and leading authority on the morphology and evolutionary history of turtles.
Charles Congden Carpenter was an eminent naturalist and herpetologist who has won numerous awards for excellence as an educator, researcher, and communicator.
Edwin Harris "Ned" Colbert was a distinguished American vertebrate paleontologist and prolific researcher and author.
Walter Auffenberg was an American biologist who spent almost 40 years in field research, studying reptile and amphibian paleontology and the systematics and biology of numerous reptile species, including alligators and Komodo dragons.
Paleontology in Texas refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Texas. Author Marian Murray has remarked that "Texas is as big for fossils as it is for everything else." Some of the most important fossil finds in United States history have come from Texas. Fossils can be found throughout most of the state. The fossil record of Texas spans almost the entire geologic column from Precambrian to Pleistocene. Shark teeth are probably the state's most common fossil. During the early Paleozoic era Texas was covered by a sea that would later be home to creatures like brachiopods, cephalopods, graptolites, and trilobites. Little is known about the state's Devonian and early Carboniferous life. However, evidence indicates that during the late Carboniferous the state was home to marine life, land plants and early reptiles. During the Permian, the seas largely shrank away, but nevertheless coral reefs formed in the state. The rest of Texas was a coastal plain inhabited by early relatives of mammals like Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus. During the Triassic, a great river system formed in the state that was inhabited by crocodile-like phytosaurs. Little is known about Jurassic Texas, but there are fossil aquatic invertebrates of this age like ammonites in the state. During the Early Cretaceous local large sauropods and theropods left a great abundance of footprints. Later in the Cretaceous, the state was covered by the Western Interior Seaway and home to creatures like mosasaurs, plesiosaurs, and few icthyosaurs. Early Cenozoic Texas still contained areas covered in seawater where invertebrates and sharks lived. On land the state would come to be home to creatures like glyptodonts, mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths, titanotheres, uintatheres, and dire wolves. Archaeological evidence suggests that local Native Americans knew about local fossils. Formally trained scientists were already investigating the state's fossils by the late 1800s. In 1938, a major dinosaur footprint find occurred near Glen Rose. Pleurocoelus was the Texas state dinosaur from 1997 to 2009, when it was replaced by Paluxysaurus jonesi after the Texan fossils once referred to the former species were reclassified to a new genus.
Paleontology in Colorado refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Colorado. The geologic column of Colorado spans about one third of Earth's history. Fossils can be found almost everywhere in the state but are not evenly distributed among all the ages of the state's rocks. During the early Paleozoic, Colorado was covered by a warm shallow sea that would come to be home to creatures like brachiopods, conodonts, ostracoderms, sharks and trilobites. This sea withdrew from the state between the Silurian and early Devonian leaving a gap in the local rock record. It returned during the Carboniferous. Areas of the state not submerged were richly vegetated and inhabited by amphibians that left behind footprints that would later fossilize. During the Permian, the sea withdrew and alluvial fans and sand dunes spread across the state. Many trace fossils are known from these deposits.
Eustace L. Furlong (1874-1950) was a paleontologist and fossil preparator noted for his work on ancient mammals and the Mesozoic reptiles of California.
Chester Stock was an American paleontologist who specialized in the Pleistocene mammalian fauna of the Rancho La Brea tar pits. He served as a professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
