Michael J. Benton
| Michael Benton | |
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Michael Benton in 2014, portrait via the Royal Society
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| Born | Michael James Benton April 8, 1956 Scotland |
| Residence | England |
| Nationality | British |
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| Institutions | University of Bristol |
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| Thesis | The Triassic reptile Hyperodapedon from Elgin, functional morphology and relationships (1981) |
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Website www |
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Michael James Benton FRS (born 8 April 1956) is a British palaeontologist, and professor of vertebrate palaeontology in the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol. His published work has mostly concentrated on the evolution of Triassic reptiles but he has also worked on extinction events and faunal changes in the fossil record.
Benton was educated at the University of Aberdeen and Newcastle University where he was awarded a PhD in 1981.
Benton's research investigates palaeobiology, palaeontology, and macroevolution. Benton is the author of several palaeontology text books (e.g. Vertebrate Palaeontology) and children's books. He has also advised on many media productions including BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs and was a program consultant for Paleoworld on Discovery Science. His research interests include: diversification of life, quality of the fossil record, shapes of phylogenies, age-clade congruence, mass extinctions, Triassic ecosystem evolution, basal diapsid phylogeny, basal archosaurs, and the origin of the dinosaurs.
Benton has also been contributing in some documentaries. One of these was BBCs 2002 program The Day The Earth Nearly Died, which feature scientists and deals with the mysteries of the Permian extinction. In December 2010, Benton got a rhynchosaur named Bentonyx in his honour. His work appears in a variety of journals.
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