Giants in History: Rinchen Barsbold

Rinchen Barsbold (born 21 December 1935) is a Mongolian palaeontologist and geologist who was instrumental in discovering and recovering one of the largest dinosaur collections in the world from the Gobi Desert in Mongolia and China. When studying fossils from the Gobi Desert, he observed that many features previously only known from birds were also present in different lineages of theropod dinosaurs. This observation provided early evidence that modern birds evolved from dinosaurs, a theory that has since been established as accurate. His work not only helped clarify late stages of dinosaur evolution in Eurasia, it also advanced Mongolia’s international reputation in the field.