STL Science Center

STL Science Center

30 November 2011

The Man of Lambe

When Lawrence Lambe began studying dinosaurs the field was filled with what would become some of the greatest names in the business. Marsh, Brown, Cope, Sternberg, Parks, von Huene, von Lilienstern; all of them were working away at some point during Lambe's life. Lambe was no small name himself in the field by the time of his nature imposed retirement; he worked right up to the last few months of life on an animal called Panoplosaurus, an ankylosaur. During his life Lambe named many now well known Canadian dinosaurs including Styracosaurus, Chasmosaurus, Gorgosaurus, Euoplocephalus, and Edmontosaurus. Lambe also found aquatic life including one of the most widely found Cretaceous crocodiles, Devonian fish, Paleozoic corals, (which he wrote a book on that you can preview here) and even Tertiary insects. Lambe was a true renaissance man of paleontology. It is small wonder then that an animal which he studied for twenty years but never named was then named for him shortly after his passing by William Parks. Thus we have Lambeosaurus lambei. Canada itself even went so far as to name an island after him in Ontario; see Lambe Islands.

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