Nicholas Hotton III was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 paleontologist renowned as an expert on dinosaur

Dinosaur

Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...

s and reptile

Reptile

Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...

s.

He was born in Michigan and was educated at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, where he received his Bachelor's Degree in geology and a Ph.D. in paleozoology

Paleozoology

Paleozoology, also spelled as palaeozoology , is the branch of paleontology or paleobiology dealing with the recovery and identification of multicellular animal remains from geological contexts, and the use of these fossils in the reconstruction of prehistoric environments and ancient...

. Dr. Hotton taught anatomy

Anatomy

Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...

 at the University of Kansas from 1951–1959, before joining the staff of the Smithsonian Institution

Smithsonian Institution

The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...

 in 1959, initially as an Associate Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology and later as the Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology for the National Museum of Natural History. In addition to administering collections at the National Museum, Dr. Hotton taught a course in vertebrate paleontology at George Washington University

George Washington University

The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...

. Much of his work focused on dicynodont

Dicynodont

Dicynodontia is a taxon of anomodont therapsids or mammal-like reptiles. Dicynodonts were small to large herbivorous animals with two tusks, hence their name, which means 'two dog tooth'...

s, a group of mammal-like reptiles that lived in the Permian and Triassic Periods. Dr. Hotton remained at the Smithsonian until his death aged 78, from colon cancer.

Books and papers

Dr. Hotton was the author of numerous technical papers and many other books regarding paleontology.

His more famous books include the widely praised Dinosaurs (1963) and The Evidence of Evolution (1968). A major paper on the physiology of dinosaurs was "An Alternative to Dinosaur Endothermy: The Happy Wanderers" in A Cold Look at the Warm Blooded Dinosaurs (D.K. Thomas and E.C. Olson. eds., 1980), in which he countered Bob Bakker's theory of endothermic, or "warm-blooded"

Warm-blooded

The term warm-blooded is a colloquial term to describe animal species which have a relatively higher blood temperature, and maintain thermal homeostasis primarily through internal metabolic processes...

dinosaurs with a theory that migration helped large cold-blooded dinosaurs maintain a constant body temperature.