Joseph Leidy

Joseph Leidy ( September 9, 1823 *, † April 30, 1891 ) was an American paleontologist and protozoologist.

Leidy was a professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania, later professor of natural history at Swarthmore College. In his book Extinct Fauna of Dakota and Nebraska, which appeared in 1869, he described many hitherto unknown, extinct species of North America.

For example, he described the William Parker Foulke in Haddonfield, New Jersey found, first nearly intact fossil skeleton of a dinosaur and named foulkii the type Hadrosaurus.

About paleontology addition to Leidy made ​​a name as a parasitologist. He realized in 1846 that the Trichinosis is caused by a parasite, Trichinella spiralis, in raw or poorly cooked meat.

Even before Charles Darwin he suspected that the environment might affect organisms. When Darwin published his theory, Leidy was excited about this. Occasionally atheism he was so accused.

In 1879 he published the Freshwater Rhizopods of North America, a pioneer work on the protist North America.