Joseph Leidy

Joseph Leidy was a taxonomist, known for discovering several notable species, like the Dire Wolf, which he named †Aenocyon dirus dirus, in 1858.

Leidy was a professor of anatomy at the University of Pennsylvania and later a professor of natural history at Swarthmore College. He published Extinct Fauna of Dakota and Nebraska in 1869, describing many new species.

It was Leidy who described the holotype of Hadrosaurus foulkii, discovered in a marl deposit in New Jersey. It was the first nearly complete skeleton of a dinosaur ever discovered. He was awarded the Lyell Medal in 1884.

He also wrote works in phycology, mycology and microscopy. Joseph Leidy was the first person to use a microscope in an investigation, in 1846. This American scientist examined the blood found on the axe of a farmer, who claimed it was chicken blood: he established that in fact it was human blood, and the farmer confessed.