John H. Ostrom '51, a distinguished paleontologist recently hailed by Discover magazine for one of the greatest discoveries of the last quarter century – that birds evolved from dinosaurs – died of complications from Alzheimer's disease in Litchfield, Conn., on July 16.
In the July issue of the national science magazine (discover.com), a University of California at Berkeley professor pays tribute to Ostrom, professor emeritus of geology and geophysics at Yale University and curator emeritus of vertebrate paleontology at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History.
“The discovery nearly a decade ago of feathers and hairlike plumes on the little Chinese dinosaurs that clearly weren't birds and couldn't fly was just another detailed confirmation of John's work,” says Kevin Padian in the magazine's survey.
“As a result, we've hooked a major group of animals to another equally major but (we thought) long-extinct one, we've learned a great deal about how flight evolved, and we've learned that feathers didn't evolve for flight but actually had several other uses.”
Ostrom also is noted for discovering Deinonychus, a two-legged dinosaur, in Montana and for his theory, published in 1969, that it may have been a warm-blooded dinosaur. This contradicted an earlier belief that dinosaur species were cold-blooded.
Born in 1928 in New York City and raised in Schenectady, Ostrom first became interested in paleontology at Union, where he began as a pre-med student. He earned his B.S. in geology and biology. In 1999, when he was the honored speaker at Founder's Day, he received an honorary doctor of science degree from Union.
He holds a Ph.D. in vertebrate paleontology from Columbia University.
Ostrom was married to the late Nancy Ostrom, and at the time of his death, he was residing in an assisted living center. He is survived by two daughters and three grandchildren.