Nicholas Hotton III (January 28, 1921 – November 29, 1999) was an American

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

renowned as an expert on

dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...

s and

reptile Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, squamates (lizards and snakes) and rhynchocephalians ( ...

Early life and education

Hotton was born in

Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan Sault Ste. Marie ( ') is the only city in, and county seat of, Chippewa County, Michigan, Chippewa County in the U.S. state of Michigan. With a population of 13,337 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the second-most populated ...

and was educated at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, where he received his bachelor's degree in geology and a Ph.D. in

paleozoology Palaeozoology, also spelled as Paleozoology (Greek: παλαιόν, ''palaeon'' "old" and ζῷον, ''zoon'' "animal"), is the branch of paleontology, paleobiology, or zoology dealing with the recovery and identification of multicellular anima ...

Career

Hotton taught

anatomy Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having its ...

at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

from 1951 to 1959, before joining the staff of the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

in 1959, initially as an associate curator of vertebrate paleontology and later as the curator of vertebrate paleontology for the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

. In addition to administering collections at the National Museum, Hotton taught a course in vertebrate paleontology at

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...

. Much of his work focused on

dicynodont Dicynodontia is an extinct clade of anomodonts, an extinct type of non-mammalian therapsid. Dicynodonts were herbivorous animals with a pair of tusks, hence their name, which means 'two dog tooth'. Members of the group possessed a horny, typicall ...

s, a group of mammal-like reptiles that lived in the

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleoz ...

and

Triassic The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest period ...

Periods. Hotton remained at the Smithsonian until his death aged 78, from colon cancer. Hotton was the author of numerous technical papers and many other books regarding paleontology. His more famous books include the widely praised ''Dinosaurs'' (1963) and ''The Evidence of Evolution'' (1968). A major paper on the physiology of dinosaurs was "An Alternative to Dinosaur Endothermy: The Happy Wanderers" in ''A Cold Look at the Warm Blooded Dinosaurs'' (D.K. Thomas and E.C. Olson. eds., 1980), in which he countered

Bob Bakker Robert Thomas Bakker (born March 24, 1945) is an American paleontologist who helped reshape modern theories about dinosaurs, particularly by adding support to the theory that some dinosaurs were endothermic (warm-blooded). Along with his mentor J ...

's theory of endothermic, or "warm-blooded" dinosaurs with a theory that migration helped large cold-blooded dinosaurs maintain a constant body temperature.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hotton, Nicholas III American paleontologists 1921 births 1999 deaths People from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan University of Chicago alumni University of Kansas faculty People from Takoma Park, Maryland George Washington University faculty Smithsonian Institution people