Jack Horner

Along with Robert Bakker, Jack Horner is one of the most prominent paleontologists in the United States (the two men served as advisers for the Jurassic Park movies, along with the famous dinosaur writer Don Lessem, and Sam Neill's character in the original was inspired by Horner). Horner's main claim to fame was his discovery, in the 1970’s, of the extensive nesting grounds of a North American hadrosaur, which he named Maiasaura ("good mother lizard"). These fossilized eggs and burrows gave paleontologists an unusually detailed glimpse of the family life of duck-billed dinosaurs.

The author of numerous popular books, Horner has remained at the forefront of paleontological research. In 2005, he discovered a chunk of T. Rex with soft tissue still attached, which was recently analyzed to determine its protein content. And in 2006, he led a team that discovered dozens of nearly intact Psittacosaurus skeletons in the Gobi Desert, shedding some valuable light on the lifestyles of these small, beaked herbivores. Lately, Horner and colleagues have been examining the growth stages of various dinosaurs; one of their more stunning finds is that Triceratops and Torosaurus may well have been the same dinosaur.