Marion Charles Bonner (1911–1992), based for most of his life in

Leoti, Kansas Leoti, pronounced "Lee-OH-Tuh." is a city in and the county seat of Wichita County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 1,475. History Leoti was founded in 1885 by a company of men from Garden City, ...

, was an American field paleontologist who discovered and collected hundreds of fossils, primarily from the Niobrara Cretaceous

Smoky Hill chalk The Smoky Hill Chalk Member of the Niobrara Chalk formation is a Cretaceous conservation Lagerstätte, or fossil rich geological formation, known primarily for its exceptionally well-preserved marine reptiles. Named for the Smoky Hill River, the S ...

outcroppings in Logan, Scott, and Gove counties of western Kansas. Largely self-taught, he frequently collaborated with museum paleontologists, including

George F. Sternberg George Fryer Sternberg (1883–1969) was a paleontologist best known for his discovery in Gove County, Kansas of the "fish-within-a-fish" of ''Xiphactinus audax'' with a recently eaten ''Gillicus arcuatus'' within its stomach. Sternberg was bor ...

, at Fort Hays State University in Hays, Kansas, and Shelton P. Applegate, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

Notable fossils collected by Bonner

Bonner’s fossil collecting career spanned 60 years. Notable specimens include a nearly complete short-necked plesiosaur, ''Dolichorhynchops'' ''osborni''; three new species of invertebrates -- ''Pecten'' ''bonneri'' (bivalve mollusk described in 1968), ''Niobrarateuthis bonneri'' (squid described in 1957), and ''Enchoteuthus melanae'' (squid described in 1968). A new fish genus occupying the bottom-feeding niche in the Niobrara Cretaceous, called ''

Bonnerichthys ''Bonnerichthys'' is a genus of fossil fishes within the family Pachycormidae that lived during the Late Cretaceous Period Fossil remains of this taxon were first described from the Smoky Hill Member of the Niobrara Chalk Formation of Kansas (L ...

gladius,'' was described 18 years after Bonner’s death. Other notable finds from the Kansas Cretaceous include the most complete ''

Hesperornis ''Hesperornis'' (meaning "western bird") is a genus of cormorant-like bird that spanned the first half of the Campanian age of the Late Cretaceous period (83.5–78 mya). One of the lesser-known discoveries of the paleontologist O. C. Marsh in ...

regalis'' specimen (Sternberg Museum, Hays, Kansas) and the most complete ''

Platecarpus ''Platecarpus'' ("flat wrist") is an extinct genus of aquatic lizards belonging to the mosasaur family, living around 84–81 million years ago during the middle Santonian to early Campanian, of the Late Cretaceous period. Fossils have been found ...

'' mosasaur (Natural History Museum of Los Angeles - LACM specimen 128319). In 1982, Bonner collected a "fish-within-a-fish" (a ''

Gillicus ''Gillicus'' was a relatively small, 2-metre long ichthyodectiform fish that lived in the Western Interior Seaway, in what is now central North America, during the Late Cretaceous. Description Like its larger relative, ''Ichthyodectes ctenodon ...

'' inside a ''

Xiphactinus ''Xiphactinus'' (from Latin and Greek for " sword-ray") is an extinct genus of large (Shimada, Kenshu, and Michael J. Everhart. "Shark-bitten Xiphactinus audax (Teleostei: Ichthyodectiformes) from the Niobrara Chalk (Upper Cretaceous) of Kansas. ...

'' ), similar to the famous fossil collected by George Sternberg on display at the Sternberg Museum. The Bonner fish-within-a-fish is on display at the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology. Bonner with plesiosaur, 1956

Exhibitions

In the 1980s and 1990s, the Los Angeles museum displayed Bonner's Kansas fossils on a wall titled "The Bonner Collection," which is now housed in the display and research areas and titled Kansas Seaway, Late Cretaceous Marion C. Bonner Collection. In addition to the Sternberg and the LACM, institutions holding his fossils include the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History (Lawrence, Kansas), the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

(New York), the

Field Museum of Natural History The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), also known as The Field Museum, is a natural history museum in Chicago, Illinois, and is one of the largest such museums in the world. The museum is popular for the size and quality of its educational ...

(Chicago), the

Denver Museum of Nature and Science The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is a municipal natural history and science museum in Denver, Colorado. It is a resource for informal science education in the Rocky Mountain region. A variety of exhibitions, programs, and activities help mus ...

, and the Royal Tyrell Museum of Paleontology (Drumheller, AB, Canada).

Family

Many of the fossils Bonner collected were discovered by members of his family of eight children, two of whom became paleontologists. Orville Bonner was staff paleontologist at the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, and Charles Bonner hunts and collects in Western Kansasand maintains a fossil museum and art gallery called Keystone Gallery, north of Scott City, Kansas.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonner, Marion 1911 births 1992 deaths American paleontologists Scientists from Kansas 20th-century American scientists