Marsh, Othniel Charles (1831-1899)

US palaeontologist. As official palaeontologist for the US Geological Survey from 1882, he identified many previously unknown fossil species and was an early devotee of Charles Darwin. He wrote Odontornithes 1880, Dinocerata 1884, and Dinosaurs of North America 1896.

Marsh was born in Lockport, New York, and educated at Yale University and in Germany. As first professor of palaeontology in the USA at the Yale faculty, he mounted fossil-hunting expeditions to the West from 1870. He served as president of the American Academy of Sciences 1883-95.