Robert T. Bakker |Robert T. Bakker| Robert Bakker in 2008 March
24, 1945 | Bergen County, New Jersey |Institutions||Johns
Hopkins University| |Alma mater||Yale University |Doctoral
advisor||John Ostrom| |Known for||The "Dinosaur renaissance"|
Robert Thomas Bakker (born March 24, 1945) is an American
paleontologist who helped reshape modern theories about
dinosaurs, particularly by adding support to the theory that
some dinosaurs were endothermic (warm-blooded). Along with his
mentor John Ostrom, Bakker was responsible for initiating the
ongoing "dinosaur renaissance" in paleontological studies,
beginning with Bakker's article "Dinosaur Renaissance",
Scientific American, April 1975. His special field is the
ecological context and behavior of dinosaurs. Bakker has been a
major proponent of the theory that dinosaurs were "warm-
blooded", smart, fast, and adaptable. He published his first
paper on dinosaur endothermy in 1968. His seminal work, The
Dinosaur Heresies, was published in 1986. He revealed the first
evi