"At Harvard I was in charge of the comparative anatomy labs." -- Robert T. Bakker
Robert T. Bakker (pronounced "Backer", 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" in 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. He revealed the first evidence of parental care at nesting sites for Allosaurus. Bakker was among the advisors for the film Jurassic Park and for the 1992 PBS series, The Dinosaurs. He also observed evidence in support of Eldredge's and Gould's theory of punctuated equilibrium in dinosaur populations. Bakker currently serves as the Curator of Paleontology for the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
"Also, while I was at Yale, I had a job teaching kids at the museum.""As an undergraduate I held many small jobs as an illustrator.""Birds evolved from a small raptor like theropod.""Feathers predate birds.""I also discovered the only complete Brontosaurus skull.""I also got a chance to go to the American Museum in New York, which helped my interest.""I want to be the Bob DeNiro of the Jurassic.""In 1941 Richard Owen said that the dinosaurs were almost hot blooded.""It was not an asteroid or comet, because it would have killed everything.""Land bridges were everywhere during the extinction, many species were spreading, and there were many diseases.""Often extinctions in the ocean occur at the same time as those on land. Then again, the ice age extinctions lost many big animals, but not many sea faring ones.""One of my major goals is to develop a web of the small Wyoming museums and create a major museum system. There are about eight of these museums, and they are all scattered.""One researcher just determined that African and Indian elephants make each other sick. When a new animal or plant is introduced to a habitat bad things happen. The biggest danger to native wildlife is foreign wildlife.""Since then I have held many jobs at museums in Colorado and Wyoming. I have also taught summer courses at the University of Colorado.""Stegosaurus was common only on well drained, dry soil.""The impact of the magazine was very strong. As I said, it portrayed dinosaurs as part of the geological history, part of the story of life on earth. It struck that paleontology was the career for me.""To me it seems that the warm blooded dinosaurs replaced advanced mammal ancestors that were warm blooded, also.""When looking at the evidence of feeding on large prey, you can see every size tooth from hatchling to adult in one spot. The babies may have been fed in the nest until they were full grown, like in eagles and hawks."
Bakker was born in Bergen County, New Jersey. He attributes his interest in dinosaurs to his reading an article in the September 7, 1953 issue of Life magazine. He graduated from Ridgewood High School in 1963.
At Yale University, Bakker studied under John Ostrom, an early proponent of the new view of dinosaurs, and later gained a PhD at Harvard. He began by teaching anatomy at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Most of his field work has been done in Wyoming, especially at Como Bluff, but he has ranged as far as Mongolia and South Africa in pursuit of dinosaur habitats.
In his 1986 work The Dinosaur Heresies, Bakker puts forth the theory that dinosaurs were warm-blooded, his evidence for which includes:
Almost all animals that walk upright today are warm-blooded, and dinosaurs walked upright.
The hearts of warm-blooded animals can pump much more effectively than the hearts of cold-blooded animals. Therefore, the giant Brachiosaurus must have had the type of hearts associated with warm-blooded animals, in order to pump blood all the way up to its head.
Dinosaurs such as Deinonychus led a very active life, which is much more compatible with a warm-blooded animal.
Some dinosaurs lived in northern latitudes where it would be impossible for cold-blooded dinosaurs to keep warm.
The rapid rate of speciation and evolution found in dinosaurs is typical of warm blooded animals and atypical of cold blooded animals.
The predator/prey ratio of predatory dinosaurs to their prey is a signature trait of warm-blooded predators rather than cold-blooded ones.
Birds are warm-blooded. Birds evolved from dinosaurs, therefore a change to a warm-blooded metabolism must have taken place at some point; there is far more change between dinosaurs and their ancestors, the archosaurs, than between dinosaurs and birds.
Warm-blooded metabolisms are evolutionary advantages for top predators and large herbivores; if the dinosaurs had not been warm-blooded there should be fossil evidence showing mammals evolving to fill these ecological niches. No such evidence exists; in fact mammals by the end of the Cretaceous had become smaller and smaller from their mammal-like-reptile ancestors.
Dinosaurs grew rapidly, evidence for which can be found by observing cross-sections of their bones. Warm-blooded animals grow at a similar rate.
His novel Raptor Red tells of a year in the life of a female Utahraptor of the lower Cretaceous. In the story, Bakker elaborates on his knowledge of the behavior of dromaeosaurids ("raptor" dinosaurs) and life at the time of their existence.
His book The Dinosaur Heresies first propelled him to popular attention.
An Ecumenical Christian minister, Bakker has said there is no real conflict between religion and science. He has advised non-believers and creationists to read the views put forward by Saint Augustine, who argued against a literal understanding of the Book of Genesis.
The bearded paleontologist Dr. Robert Burke in Steven Spielberg's film Jurassic Park is an affectionate caricature of Bakker, who is eaten by a Tyrannosaurus rex in the film. In real life, Bakker has argued for a predatory Tyrannosaurus rex, while Bakker's rival paleontologist Jack Horner views it as primarily a scavenger. According to Horner, Spielberg wrote the character of Burke and had him killed by the Tyrannosaurus rex as a favor for Horner. After the film came out, Bakker recognized himself in Burke, loved the caricature, and actually sent Horner a message saying, "See, I told you T. rex was a hunter!".
