Richard Owen (1804-1892)
Head of what is now the Natural History Museum,Richard Owenwas an influential anatomist and palaeontologist, who described dinosaurs as a group. He reconstructed a series of the earliest known species, including Megalosaurus, Iguanodon and Hylaeosaurus.
John Ostrom (1928-2005)
John Ostrom discovered and described Deinonychus, now hailed as one of the most important fossil finds in history. He reconstructed it as a speedy, warm-blooded predator – at odds with the perception that dinosaurs were slow and lumbering. He brought back the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs.
Robert T Bakker (1945-)
Robert T Bakker was a student of John Ostrom. Bakker went on to lead the charge of the ‘dinosaur renaissance’, theorising on physiology and locomotion and stirring up controversy by suggesting that, unlike modern lizards, dinosaurs were warm-blooded. The jury is still out on that one.
Gregory S Paul (1954-)
Gregory S Paul is an artist and palaeontologist whose books and anatomically accurate dinosaur illustrations have inspired a generation of artists and many of the dinosaur illustrations you see today. His work pioneered the revised look of dinosaurs in the 1970s.
Mike Benton(1956-)
Mike Benton is apalaeontologist at the University of Bristol. He led a team of researchers in 2010 to determine the colour of dinosaurs. They showed that Sinosauropteryx was covered in fluffy ginger and white feathers.
Xu Xing (1956-)
Xu Xing has discovered more dinosaurs than just about anyone else alive today. These include more than half of the feathered dinos found in China.
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