Roy Chapman Andrews 1884-1960

Today, March 11th, marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Roy Chapman Andrews one of the most colourful and fascinating naturalists and museum scientists of the 20th century.  He led a number of pioneering expeditions to the Gobi desert of central Asia in the early 1920s and although the original objective of these scientific expeditions was to find mammal fossils, he is best remembered for the dinosaurs he helped discover.

Roy Chapman Andrews

Working for the American Museum of Natural History (New York), Roy Chapman Andrews and his colleagues on these expeditions discovered the first-known fossilised dinosaur nests and hatchlings as well as many new dinosaurs including Protoceratops, Velociraptor and Oviraptor.

To see models of Velociraptor, Protoceratops and Oviraptor: CollectA Age of Dinosaurs Popular Models.

An Oviraptorid Dinosaur Sitting on a Nest

An Oviraptor and dinosaur eggs exhibit.

An Oviraptor and its nest. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Many people believe that the real life adventures of Roy Chapman Andrews formed the basis for the fictional character Indiana Jones.

To read an article about this: Would the real Indiana Jones Please Step Forward.

Although regarded as a maverick by some academics, the contribution of Roy Chapman Andrews to the collection of the American Museum of Natural History is widely recognised.  Indeed, many of the methods and techniques pioneered by his team in the 1920s in their expeditions to remote parts of the world are still used by scientific expeditions today.