Joseph Leidy

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Joseph Leidy

Joseph Leidy (September 9, 1823 – 30 April 1891) was an American paleontologist.

Leidy was professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania, and later was a professor of natural history at Swarthmore College. His book Extinct Fauna of Dakota and Nebraska (1869) contained many species not previously described and many previously unknown on the North American continent.

Leidy named the holotype specimen of Hadrosaurus foulkii, which was recovered from the marl pits of Haddonfield, New Jersey. It was notable for being the first nearly-complete fossilized skeleton of a dinosaur ever recovered. The specimen was originally discovered by William Parker Foulke.

Leidy was also a renowned parasitologist, and determined as early as 1846 that trichinosis was caused by a parasite in undercooked meat [1]. He was also a pioneering protozoologist, publishing Fresh-water Rhizopods of North America in 1879 - a masterpiece that is still referenced today.