User:Abyssal/Charles Lewis Camp

Charles Lewis Camp (March 12, 1893 Jamestown, North Dakota - August 14, 1975 San Jose, California) was a notable palaeontologist and zoologist, working from the University of California, Berkeley. He took part in excavations at the 'Placerias Quarry', in 1930 and the Shonisaurus skeleton discoveries of 1960, in what is now the Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park.

In 1937 Camp and his wife Harriet assisted the Berkeley crew excavating the state's first scientifically documented plesiosaur remains in the Panoche Hills. The Camps excavated its left rear flipper and some of its ribs. Camp also discovered the beast's gastroliths. Also on this field excursion Camp first got to view the remains of the new mosasaur genus and species he would later formally name.

In 1942 Camp described the new genus and species Kolposaurus bennisoni in a publication titled California Mosasaurs. However, since the genus name Kolposaurus had been used previously for a different animal, Camp would later rename it Plotosaurus in 1951. Camp named Plotosaurus bennisoni in honor of Allan P. Bennison, who first discovered the remains in 1937. Among the initial Plotosaurus fossils described by Camp were the best preserved mosasaur skull ever found in California.

Publications

 * California mosasaurs (Berkeley, Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1942).
 * Classification of the lizards (New York, N.Y., 1923, reprinted in 1971). This was his doctorate thesis.
 * Earth song: a prologue to history (Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1952).
 * Bibliography of fossil vertebrates 1944-1948 (Geological Society of America, New York,1953) co-author Morton Green (1917-2003).
 * A Study of the Phytosaurs, with description of new material from Western North America (Berkeley, Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1930).
 * Methods in Paleontology (California, University of California Press, 1937) co-author G Dallas Hanna (1887-1970).