Wann Langston Jr. (1921 – April 7, 2013) 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 ...

and

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. Langston worked on a number of different reptiles and amphibians in his long career, beginning with the 1950 description (with J. Willis Stovall) of the

theropod Theropoda (; ), whose members are known as theropods, is a dinosaur clade that is characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. Theropods are generally classed as a group of saurischian dinosaurs. They were ancestrally c ...

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 ...

Acrocanthosaurus ''Acrocanthosaurus'' ( ; ) is a genus of carcharodontosaurid dinosaur that existed in what is now North America during the Aptian and early Albian stages of the Early Cretaceous, from 113 to 110 million years ago. Like most dinosaur genera, ' ...

''. Langston was hired by the

National Museum of Canada The national museums of Canada are the nine museums in Canada designated under the federal ''Museums Act'' and operated by the Government of Canada. The national museums are responsible for "preserving and promoting the heritage of Canada and all it ...

in 1954 to replace

Charles M. Sternberg Charles Mortram Sternberg (1885–1981) was an American-Canadian fossil collector and paleontology, paleontologist, son of Charles Hazelius Sternberg. Late in his career, he collected and described ''Pachyrhinosaurus'', ''Brachylophosaurus'', ' ...

, and worked in western

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and on

Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen Provinces and territories of Canada, provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has seve ...

until 1962. One of his major finds, with Loris Russell, was the rediscovery of Sternberg's Scabby Butte ''

Pachyrhinosaurus ''Pachyrhinosaurus'' (meaning in Greek "thick-nosed lizard", from ' (), thick; ' (), nose; and (), lizard) is an extinct genus of centrosaurine ceratopsid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous period of North America. The first examples were discove ...

'' bonebed. Langston, along with a small team of fieldworkers, excavated the Scabby Butte bonebed in 1957, securing several skulls and several hundred bones there. He then went on in 1963 to the University of Texas, where in 1969 he became the second director of the Vertebrate Paleontology Laboratory, where he worked on many projects, including work on

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

vertebrate Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, ...

s from

Big Bend National Park Big Bend National Park is an American national park located in West Texas, bordering Mexico. The park has national significance as the largest protected area of Chihuahuan Desert topography and ecology in the United States, and was named after ...

. Finds that he and his students worked on include the giant

pterosaur Pterosaurs (; from Greek ''pteron'' and ''sauros'', meaning "wing lizard") is an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order, Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 to ...

Quetzalcoatlus ''Quetzalcoatlus'' is a genus of pterosaur known from the Late Cretaceous period of North America (Maastrichtian stage); its members were among the largest known flying animals of all time. ''Quetzalcoatlus'' is a member of the Azhdarchidae, ...

'' and a variety of

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

Mesozoic The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceo ...

reptiles. He retired in 1986, but continued to be active in the field. In 2007, Langston was the twentieth recipient of the

Society of Vertebrate Paleontology The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) is a professional organization that was founded in the United States in 1940 to advance the science of vertebrate paleontology around the world. Mission and Activities SVP has about 2,300 members inter ...

's A. S. Romer-

G. G. Simpson George Gaylord Simpson (June 16, 1902 – October 6, 1984) was an American paleontologist. Simpson was perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century, and a major participant in the Modern synthesis (20th century), modern ...

Medal, the highest honor of the society. Langston died of natural causes a few days after a Geological Society of America symposium held in his honor at the South Central Geological Society of America meeting in Austin, Texas. Animals named by Langston include the

carcharodontosaurid Carcharodontosauridae (carcharodontosaurids; from the Greek καρχαροδοντόσαυρος, ''carcharodontósauros'': "shark-toothed lizards") is a group of carnivorous theropod dinosaurs. In 1931, Ernst Stromer named Carcharodontosauridae ...

theropod ''Acrocanthosaurus'' (1950), the

hadrosauroid Hadrosauroidea is a clade or superfamily of ornithischian dinosaurs that includes the "duck-billed" dinosaurs, or hadrosaurids, and all dinosaurs more closely related to them than to ''Iguanodon''. Their remains have been recovered in Asia, Eu ...

dinosaur ''

Lophorhothon ''Lophorhothon'' is a genus of hadrosauroid dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous, the first genus of dinosaur discovered in Alabama, in the United States. Discovery and naming Remains of this small, poorly known perhaps saurolophine dinosaur we ...

'' (1960), the

microsaur Microsauria ("small lizards") is an extinct, possibly polyphyletic order of tetrapods from the late Carboniferous and early Permian periods. It is the most diverse and species-rich group of lepospondyls. Recently, Microsauria has been consider ...

Carrolla ''Carrolla'' is an extinct genus of brachystelechid 'microsaur' that lived in the Lower Permian in North America. It was named in 1986 by American paleontologists Wann Langston and Everett Olson. The type species, ''Carrolla craddocki'', is th ...

'' (1986), and the azdarchid pterosaurs ''

Wellnhopterus ''Wellnhopterus'' () is an Azhdarchidae, azhdarchid pterosaur recovered from the Late Cretaceous Javelina Formation in Texas that was previously identified as a thalassodrominae, thalassodromine. It consists of a set of upper and lower jaws (TMM ...

'' and ''

lawsoni'' (2021). The

mesoeucrocodylia Mesoeucrocodylia is the clade that includes Eusuchia and crocodyliforms formerly placed in the paraphyletic group Mesosuchia. The group appeared during the Early Jurassic, and continues to the present day. Diagnosis It was long known that M ...

ns ''

Langstonia ''Langstonia'' (meaning " rocodileof Langston", in honor of paleontologist Wann Langston, Jr.) is an extinct genus of notosuchian crocodylomorph of the family Sebecidae. It lived in the middle Miocene (specifically in the Laventan land-mammal a ...

'', '' Akanthosuchus langstoni,'' and '' Albertochampsa langstoni''; theropod ''

Saurornitholestes langstoni ''Saurornitholestes'' ("lizard-bird thief") is a genus of carnivorous dromaeosaurid theropod dinosaur from the late Cretaceous of Canada (Alberta) and the United States (Montana, New Mexico, Alabama, North Carolina, and South Carolina). Two spec ...

''; and pachycephalosaur '' Texacephale langstoni'' were named for him.

Selected publications

*Stovall, J.W., & W. Langston Jr. 1950. ''Acrocanthosaurus atokensis'', a new genus and species of Lower Cretaceous Theropoda from Oklahoma. ''American Midland Naturalist'' 43(4):686-728. *Langston Jr., W. 1952. The first embolomerous amphibians from New Mexico. ''Journal of Geology'' 61(1):68-71. *Langston Jr., W., & J.W. Durham. 1955. A sauropod dinosaur from Colombia. ''Journal of Paleontology'' 29(6):1047-1051. *Langston Jr., W. 1959. ''Anchiceratops'' from the Oldman Formation of Alberta. ''National Museum of Canada Natural History Papers'' 3:1-11. *Langston Jr., W. 1960. The vertebrate fauna of the Selma Formation of Alabama. Part VI. The dinosaurs. ''Fieldiana: Geology Memoirs'' 3(6):315-361. *Langston Jr., W. 1963. Fossil vertebrates and the Late Paleozoic red beds of Prince Edward Island. National Museum of Canada, Bulletin 187, 36 p. *Langston Jr., W. 1965. Fossil crocodilians from Colombia and the Cenozoic History of the Crocodylia in South America. University of California Publications of Geological Sciences, 52: 1-127. *Langston Jr., W. 1967. The thick-headed ceratopsian dinosaur ''Pachyrhinosaurus'' (Reptilia: Ornithischia), from the Edmonton Formation near Drumheller, Canada. ''Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences'' 4:171-186. *Langston Jr., W. 1974. Nonmammalian Comanchean tetrapods. ''Geoscience and Man'' 8:77-102. *Langston Jr., W. 1975. The ceratopsian dinosaurs and associated lower vertebrates from the St. Mary River Formation (Maestrichtian) at Scabby Butte, southern Alberta. ''Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences'' 12:1576-1608. *Langston Jr., W. 1976. A late Cretaceous vertebrate fauna from the St. Mary River Formation in western Canada. in Churcher, C.S. (ed.): ''Athlon''. Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 114-133. *Langston Jr., W. 1986. ''Carrolla craddocki''; a new genus and species of microsaur from the Lower Permian of Texas. ''The Pearce-Sellards series'' (43)1-20.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Langston, Wann Jr. American paleontologists 1921 births 2013 deaths American expatriates in Canada University of Texas at Austin faculty