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Harry Govier Seeley (18 February 1839 - 8 January 1909) was a British paleontologist who determined that dinosaur
Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrate animals of Landform ecosystems for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic Period until the end of the Cretaceous Period , when most of them became extinct in the Cretaceous?Tertiary extinction event....
s fell into two great groups, the Saurischia
Saurischia

Saurischia is one of the two Order s, or basic divisions, of dinosaurs. In 1888, Harry Seeley classified dinosaurs into two orders, based on their hip structure....
ns and the Ornithischia
Ornithischia

Ornithischia or Predentata is an extinct order of beaked, herbivore dinosaurs. The name ornithischia is derived from the Ancient Greek ornitheos meaning 'of a bird' and ischion meaning 'hip joint'....
ns, based on the nature of their pelvic bones and joints
Pelvis

The pelvis or pelvic girdle is the irregular bone structure located at the base of the spine . In the adult human, it is formed by the sacrum and the coccyx, the caudal part of the axial skeleton, and a pair of hip bones, part of the appendicular skeleton or human leg....
. He published his results in 1888, from a lecture he had delivered the previous year. Paleontologists of his time had been dividing the Dinosauria various ways, depending on the structure of their feet and the form of their teeth.






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Harry Govier Seeley (18 February 1839 - 8 January 1909) was a British paleontologist who determined that dinosaur
Dinosaur

Dinosaurs were the dominant vertebrate animals of Landform ecosystems for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic Period until the end of the Cretaceous Period , when most of them became extinct in the Cretaceous?Tertiary extinction event....
s fell into two great groups, the Saurischia
Saurischia

Saurischia is one of the two Order s, or basic divisions, of dinosaurs. In 1888, Harry Seeley classified dinosaurs into two orders, based on their hip structure....
ns and the Ornithischia
Ornithischia

Ornithischia or Predentata is an extinct order of beaked, herbivore dinosaurs. The name ornithischia is derived from the Ancient Greek ornitheos meaning 'of a bird' and ischion meaning 'hip joint'....
ns, based on the nature of their pelvic bones and joints
Pelvis

The pelvis or pelvic girdle is the irregular bone structure located at the base of the spine . In the adult human, it is formed by the sacrum and the coccyx, the caudal part of the axial skeleton, and a pair of hip bones, part of the appendicular skeleton or human leg....
. He published his results in 1888, from a lecture he had delivered the previous year. Paleontologists of his time had been dividing the Dinosauria various ways, depending on the structure of their feet and the form of their teeth. Seeley's division, however, has stood the test of time, though, ironically, the birds have subsequently been found to descend, not from the "bird-hipped" Ornithischia, but from the "lizard-hipped" Saurischia. He found the two groups so distinct that he also argued for separate origins: not until the 1980s did new techniques of cladistic analysis
Cladistics

Cladistics is the hierarchical classification of species based on evolutionary ancestry. Cladistics is distinguished from other taxonomic systems because it focuses on evolution rather than similarities between species, and because it places heavy emphasis on objective, quantitative analysis....
 show that both groups of dinosaurs really did have common ancestors in the Triassic
Triassic

The Triassic is a geologic period that extends from about 251 to 199 annum . As the first period of the Mesozoic Era, the Triassic follows the Permian and is followed by the Jurassic....
. Seeley described and named numerous dinosaurs from their fossil
Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or trace fossil of animals, plants, and other organisms from the remote past. The totality of fossils, both discovered and undiscovered, and their placement in fossiliferous Rock formations and sedimentary rock layers is known as the fossil record....
s in the course of his career.

His popular book on Pterosaur
Pterosaur

Pterosaurs were flying reptiles of the clade or Order Pterosauria. They existed from the late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous Period . Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight....
s, Dragons of the Air (1901) found that birds and pterosaurs are closely parallel. Although his belief that they had a common origin has not proved correct, he upset Richard Owen
Richard Owen

Sir Richard Owen Order of the Bath was an English people biologist, comparative anatomy and paleontology.Owen is probably best remembered today for coining the word Dinosauria and for his outspoken opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection....
's characterization of the pterosaurs as cold-blooded, sluggish gliders, and recognized them as warm-blooded active fliers.

Seeley had been an assistant to Adam Sedgwick
Adam Sedgwick

Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He proposed the Devonian period of the geological timescale and later the Cambrian period....
 at the Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge, from 1859. He turned down positions both with the British Museum
British Museum

The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture situated in London. Its collections, which number more than 7 million Object , are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginning to the present....
 and the Geological Survey
Geological survey

The term geological survey can be used to describe both the conduct of a surveying for geological purposes and an institution holding geological information....
 of Britain to work on his own. Late in his career he accepted a position at King's College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge

King's College, Cambridge is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and St. Nicholas in Cambridge, it is referred to as King's within the university....
.

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