Joseph Leidy

Zoologist, palaeontologist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a trained medical doctor and professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania (1853–91). A scientist of unusual range, he published a classic anatomical text and important works on parasitology and protozoa. In addition he is regarded (along with Edward Drinker Cope and O C Marsh) as a founder of American vertebrate palaeontology. Dismayed by his colleagues' contentiousness, however, he abandoned that field after publishing his major work, ‘The Extinct Mammalian Fauna of Dakota and Nebraska’ (1869).

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.

Leidy was also a renowned parasitologist, and determined as early as 1846 that trichinosis was caused by a parasite in undercooked meat .