Jack Horner (paleontologist)

Life and career

Horner was born and raised in Shelby, Montana. He was only eight years old when he found his very first dinosaur bone. He attended the University of Montana for seven years, majoring in geology and zoology. He also spent two years in the U.S. Marine Corps, serving during the Vietnam War in the Special Forces. Horner did not complete his bachelor's degree due to severe dyslexia. However, he did complete a formidable senior thesis on the fauna of the Bear Gulch Limestone in Montana, which is one of the most famous Mississippian lagerstätten (or exceptionally preserved fossil site) in the world. The University of Montana awarded him an Honorary Doctorate of Science in 1986. In 1986, he was also awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship.

In Montana during the mid-1970s, Horner and his research partner Bob Makela discovered a colonial nesting site of a new dinosaur genus which they named Maiasaura, or "Good Mother Lizard". The baby dinosaur bones were first discovered by Marion Brandvold. Horner then studied the bones, and at first, there was a refusal to return the bones to Brandvold. It contained the first dinosaur eggs in the Western hemisphere, the first dinosaur embryos, and settled questions of whether some dinosaurs were sociable, built nests and cared for their young. The discovery established his career. Horner has named several other species of dinosaur (including Orodromeus makelai in memory of his late friend Bob Makela) and has had two named after him: Achelousaurus horneri and Anasazisaurus horneri.

Within the paleontological community, Horner is best known for his work on the cutting edge of dinosaur growth research. He has published numerous articles in collaboration with Berkeley paleontologist Kevin Padian, and French dinosaur histologist Armand de Ricqlès, on the growth of dinosaurs using growth series. This usually involves leg bones in graduated sizes from different individuals ranging in age from embryos to adults. He also revitalized the contested theory that Tyrannosaurus rex was an obligate scavenger, rather than a predatory killer. While this theory has been widely discussed by the popular press, it has never been a major research focus for Dr. Horner. Horner himself has claimed that he never published the scavenger hypothesis in the peer reviewed scientific literature, and that he used it mainly as a tool to teach a popular audience, particularly children, the dangers of making assumptions in science (such as assuming T. rex was a hunter) without using evidence. In 2000, Horner's crews discovered five specimens of T. rex and three more the following summer, including one even larger than the specimen nicknamed "Sue". The specimen was 10–13 tons in weight and was 10% larger than other specimens. The Museum of the Rockies, as the result of continuing fieldwork, now boasts the largest Tyrannosaurus rex collection in the world. Currently, he is working on the developmental biology of dinosaurs.

Horner has published more than 100 professional papers, eight popular books including Dinosaurs Under the Big Sky; a children's book, Maia: A Dinosaur Grows Up; a non-fiction book on dinosaurs from Montana, Dinosaur Lives; and numerous published articles. He was also a part of the 2005 discovery of soft tissue inside of a T. rex fossil. Currently, he is the Curator of Paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies, the Regent's Professor of Paleontology, adjunct curator at the National Museum of Natural History, and teaches with the Honors Program at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. Over the years he has advised those who have gone on to be the leading paleontologists of a new generation such as Mary Higby Schweitzer, Greg Erickson, Scott Sampson, Kristi Curry-Rogers, and David J. Varricchio. Horner was awarded an honorary doctorate by Pennsylvania State University in 2006 in recognition of his work.

In 2003, Horner discovered a fossilized tyrannosaur leg bone from which paleontologist Mary Higby Schweitzer was able to retrieve proteins in 2007.

In 2009, National Geographic released a documentary entitled "Dinosaurs Decoded" which reviews Horner's research into juvenile dinosaurs. He suggests that juvenile dinosaurs looked sufficiently different from adults, and that they have sometimes been mistaken for a separate species. The program examines specific changes that occurred as dinosaurs aged and speculates on why the changes were necessary. Horner's research on the topic has gone as far as eliminating several "sub-species" of Triceratops, Pachycephalosaurus, and Tyrannosaurs. Horner also believes that if his research were to continue as much as a third of known dinosaurs would be classified under an existing species.

In Las Vegas on January 15, 2012, 65-year-old Horner married Vanessa Weaver, a 19-year-old Montana State University undergraduate paleontology student. The couple had divorced by August 2016, but remained friends.

On November 2, 2013, Horner was awarded the Romer-Simpson Prize, the highest honor a paleontologist can receive from the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

On his retirement from Montana State University on July 1, 2016, the MacMillan Foundation honored Horner for his work with a $3million endowment for the John R. Horner Curator of Paleontology Chair for the Museum of the Rockies/ Montana State University - funding the work of his Paleontology successors in perpetuity.

In 2017, a team of researchers led by Thomas Carr of Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin named a new species of Tyrannosaur, Daspletosaurus horneri after Horner.

Build a Dinosaur Project

Horner's 2009 book, How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever, describes his plan to recreate a dinosaur by genetically "nudging" the DNA of a chicken. Horner's idea for the project came from an early script for Jurassic World. Horner had been planning the book as early as June 2005; it was originally planned to be released simultaneously with Jurassic World as a scientific companion volume.

As of 2011 Horner is pursuing the project to develop the animal, which he describes as a "chickenosaurus", with a team of geneticists. By November 2014, Horner and his team had conducted some of the earliest research into the embryonic development of tails. Such research may ultimately lead to new treatments for people suffering from spinal disorders. Research into the mesenchyme tissue of chicken embryos, which direct the growth of teeth, may also aid in the treatment of human sarcomas. George Lucas had funded most of the project's costs up to that point, while an additional $5 million was needed. Horner expected to have a living dinosaur within 10 years.

In 2015, an independent group of scientists reported that they had found a way to turn the beaks of chicken embryos back into dinosaur-like snouts, by reverse genetic engineering., and University of Chile geneticists have produced embryos with dinosaur-like leg and foot anatomy.