Peter M. Galton is a British vertebrate paleontologist

Vertebrate paleontology

Vertebrate paleontology is a large subfield to paleontology seeking to discover the behavior, reproduction and appearance of extinct animals with vertebrae or a notochord, through the study of their fossilized remains...

 working in America, who has to date written or co-written about a hundred papers in scientific journals or chapters in paleontology textbooks, especially on ornithischia

Ornithischia

Ornithischia or Predentata is an extinct order of beaked, herbivorous dinosaurs. The name ornithischia is derived from the Greek ornitheos meaning 'of a bird' and ischion meaning 'hip joint'...

n and prosauropod 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.

With Robert Bakker in a joint article published in Nature

Nature (journal)

Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...

in 1974, he argued that dinosaurs constitute a natural monophyletic group, in contrast to the prevailing view that considered them polyphyletic as consisting of two different not closely related orders

Order (biology)

In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...

, thus initiating a revolution in dinosaur studies and contributing to the revival of the popularity of dinosaurs in the field of paleontology.

Publications

• Bakker, R.T. and Galton, P.M. (1974). "Dinosaur monophyly and a new class of vertebrates". Nature 248:168-172.
• Galton, P.M. (1982). "The postcranial anatomy of stegosaurian dinosaur Kentrosaurus from the Upper Jurassic of Tanzania, East Africa". Geologica et Palaeontologica 15:139-165.
• Galton, P.M. (1984). "Cranial anatomy of the prosauropod dinosaur Plateosaurus from the Knollenmergel (Middle Keuper, Upper Triassic) of Germany. I. Two complete skulls from Trossingen/Württ. With comments on the diet". Geologica et Palaeontologica 18:139-171.
• Galton, P.M. (1985). "Cranial anatomy of the prosauropod dinosaur Plateosaurus from the Knollenmergel (Middle Keuper, Upper Triassic) of Germany. II. All the cranial material and details of soft-part anatomy". Geologica et Palaeontologica 19:119-159.
• Galton, P.M. (1986). "Prosauropod dinosaur Plateosaurus (=Gresslyosaurus) (Saurischia: Sauropodomorpha) from the Upper Triassic of Switzerland". Geologica et Paleontologica 20:167-183.
• Galton, P.M. (1988). "Skull bones and endocranial casts of stegosaurian dinosaur Kentrosaurus HENNIG, 1915 from Upper Jurassic of Tanzania, East Africa". Geologica et Palaeontologica 22:123-143.
• Galton, P.M. (1990). "Basal Sauropodomorpha-Prosauropoda". pp. 320–344 in Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P. and Osmólska, H. (eds.): The Dinosauria. University of California Press, Berkeley
• Galton, P.M. (2000). "The prosauropod dinosaur Plateosaurus Meyer, 1837 (Saurischia, Sauropodomorpha). I: The syntypes of P. engelhardti Meyer, 1837 (Upper Triassic, Germany), with notes on other European prosauropods with "distally straight" femora". Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen 216(2):233-275.
• Galton, P.M. (2001). "The prosauropod dinosaur Plateosaurus Meyer, 1837 (Saurischia: Sauropodomorpha; Upper Triassic). II. Notes on the referred species". Revue Paléobiologie, Genève 20(2):435-502.
• Galton, P.M. and Upchurch, P. (2004). "Prosauropoda". pp. 232–258 in Weishampel Weishampel, D.B., Dodson, P. and Osmólska, H. (eds.): The Dinosauria 2nd Edition. University of California Press, Berkeley.