, Rinchyengiin Barsbold, born December 21, 1935 in
Ulaanbaatar
Ulaanbaatar (; mn, Улаанбаатар, , "Red Hero"), previously anglicized as Ulan Bator, is the capital and most populous city of Mongolia. It is the coldest capital city in the world, on average. The municipality is located in north ce ...
) is a
Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million ...
n
paleontologist
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
and
geologist
A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...
. He works with the Institute of Geology, at
Ulaanbaatar
Ulaanbaatar (; mn, Улаанбаатар, , "Red Hero"), previously anglicized as Ulan Bator, is the capital and most populous city of Mongolia. It is the coldest capital city in the world, on average. The municipality is located in north ce ...
,
Mongolia
Mongolia; Mongolian script: , , ; lit. "Mongol Nation" or "State of Mongolia" () is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of , with a population of just 3.3 million ...
. He is an expert in
vertebrate
Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with ...
paleontology
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
and
Mesozoic
The Mesozoic Era ( ), also called the Age of Reptiles, the Age of Conifers, and colloquially as the Age of the Dinosaurs is the second-to-last era of Earth's geological history, lasting from about , comprising the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretace ...
stratigraphy
Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers ( strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks.
Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...
.
Barsbold has been instrumental in the discovery and recovery of one of the largest
dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago (mya), although the exact origin and timing of the evolution of dinosaurs is t ...
collections in the world. His work has helped to form a more modern understanding of the later stages of dinosaur evolution in
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelag ...
.
Barsbold has had considerable influence on dinosaur paleontology in the Communist world. His scientific work has made him a leading authority on
theropod
Theropoda (; ), whose members are known as theropods, is a dinosaur clade that is characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. Theropods are generally classed as a group of saurischian dinosaurs. They were ancestrally c ...
s of the
Gobi Desert
The Gobi Desert ( Chinese: 戈壁 (沙漠), Mongolian: Говь (ᠭᠣᠪᠢ)) () is a large desert or brushland region in East Asia, and is the sixth largest desert in the world.
Geography
The Gobi measures from southwest to northeast a ...
, starting with his doctoral dissertation on these dinosaurs. As early as 1983, he noted that in different lineages of theropods, many features previously only known from
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...
s had evolved in various combinations (Barsbold 1983). He postulated that as a result of this "ornithization", one or several lineages of theropods that happened to acquire the proper combination of such traits went on to evolve into actual birds.
Since the identification of a number of
feathered dinosaurs beginning in the late 1990s, Barsbold's ideas have been more fully appreciated. When he initially published his conclusions - a list of generally rather obscure
anatomical
Anatomy () is the branch of biology concerned with the study of the structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old science, having it ...
features - in 1983, there was little exchange between the Mongolian scientific community and that of Western countries. Moreover, his early papers were usually published in
Russian, in which few Western scientists are fluent. In addition,
Evgeny Kurochkin - a leading specialist on bird paleontology in the Soviet sphere - was critical of the theropod-bird link, working with and teaching mostly
Cenozoic
The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configu ...
bird paleontology. Therefore, Barsbold's theories initially had more impact among paleontologists in Mongolia, the
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nati ...
, and allied countries.
He is the son of scientist and writer
Byambyn Rinchen
Yenshööbü ovogt Byambyn Rinchen ( mn, Еншөөбү овогт Бямбын Ринчен, , , 25 December 1905 – 4 March 1977), also known in Russian as Rinchin-Dorzhi Radnazhapovich Bimbaev (russian: Ринчин-Доржи Раднаж ...
.
Dinosaur identification
''
Barsboldia'' (
Maryanska and Osmolska, 1981) is named after him.
The dinosaur
genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...
and
families named by Barsbold are, in alphabetical order:
* ''
Adasaurus
''Adasaurus'' ( ; meaning "Ada lizard") is a genus of dromaeosaurid dinosaur that lived in Asia during the Late Cretaceous period about 70 million years ago. The genus is known from two partial specimens found in the Nemegt Formation of Mongolia ...
'' (1983)
* ''
Anserimimus'' (1988)
* ''
Conchoraptor'' (1986)
* the family
Enigmosauridae (1983) (now synonymous with
)
* ''
Enigmosaurus'' (with A. Perle, 1983)
* ''
Gallimimus
''Gallimimus'' ( ) is a genus of Theropoda, theropod dinosaur that lived in what is now Mongolia during the Late Cretaceous Period (geology), period, about seventy mya (unit), million years ago (mya). Several fossils in various stages of growth ...
'' (with H. Osmólska and E. Roniewicz, 1972)
* ''
Garudimimus'' and the family
Garudimimidae (1981)
* ''
Harpymimus'' and the family
Harpymimidae (with A. Perle, 1984)
* "Ingenia" (1981) (occupied, now ''
Heyuannia yanshini'')
* the subfamily
Ingeniinae (1981) (now synonymous with
Heyuaniinae)
* the family
Oviraptoridae (1976)
* the suborder
Segnosauria (with A. Perle, 1980) (now synonymous with
Therizinosauria)
References
* Barsbold, Rinchen (1983): O ptich'ikh chertakh v stroyenii khishchnykh dinozavrov.
Avian" features in the morphology of predatory dinosaurs ''Transactions of the Joint Soviet Mongolian Paleontological Expedition'' 24: 96-103.
riginal article in Russian.Translated by W. Robert Welsh, copy provided by Kenneth Carpenter and converted by Matthew Carrano
PDF fulltext
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barsbold, Rinchen
1935 births
Living people
Mongolian paleontologists
Mongolian geologists
Foreign Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences