Larry Martin

Larry Dean Martin ( born December 8, 1943 in Bartlett ( Nebraska); † March 9, 2013 ) was an American vertebrate paleontologist who dealt in particular with birds and mammals.

Martin studied at the University of Nebraska with a bachelor 's degree in 1966 and a master's degree in 1969 and received his doctorate in 1973 at the University of Kansas in biology. From 1972 he was curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Natural History Museum the University of Kansas and at the same time an assistant professor and later professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University. He was there at the Biodiversity Institute.

He examined, for example, fossils of saber-toothed cats, indications of disease in fossils (eg tuberculosis old at 17,000 years bison fossils ), rodents and birds from the Pleistocene and Neogene of North America, mosasaurs, the Cretaceous sea birds Hesperornis and Ichthyornis and the relationship of extinction of vertebrates and climate change, especially in North America in the last 30 million years.

He was like Alan Feduccia as supporters of the lineage of birds are not dinosaurs, but of archosaurs, long time, he also advocated a relationship with crocodiles. He also believed that Maniraptoren were (like the very bird-like Caudipteryx ) no dinosaurs, but are attributable to the birds.

He also tried, by Ernst Haeckel for bird ancestors such as Archaeopteryx ( with a long tail, unlike modern birds with pygostyle in Haeckel: Ornithurae ) revive introduced group of Sauriurae. But that did not sit through.

From 1986 he was a member of the U.S. Working Group on the Quaternary boundary.

He was married since 1967 and has two daughters.

Writings

  • Bruce M. Rothschild: Paleopathology: disease in the fossil record, Boca Raton: CRC Press 1993
  • The relationship of Archaeopteryx to other birds, in The Beginnings of Birds ( Archaeopteryx Conference Eichstätt 1984 ), 1985
  • The Evolution and Early Radiation of Birds, in Perspectives in Ornithology. Essays presented for the cenennial of the American Ornithologists' Union, 1983, pp. 291-353
  • The origin of birds and of avian flight, Current Ornithology, 1, 1983, pp. 105-129
  • With B. Miles Gilbert, Howard G. Savage Avian Osteology, Laramie / Wyoming 1981
  • Editor with Virginia Naples, John Barbiaz: The other saber - tooths: scimitar -tooth cats of the Western Hemisphere, The Johns Hopkins University Press 2011
University of Nebraska system Mosasaurus Hesperornithes Maniraptora
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