Background
Langston, Wann was born on July 10, 1921 in Oklahoma City.
educator paleontologist researcher emeritus
Langston, Wann was born on July 10, 1921 in Oklahoma City.
Bachelor of Science, University Oklahoma, 1943; Master of Sciences, University Oklahoma, 1947; Doctor of Philosophy in Paleontology, University of California, 1951.
Langston worked on a number of different reptiles and amphibians in his long career, beginning with the 1950 description (with J Willis Stovall) of the theropod dinosaur Acrocanthosaurus. Langston was hired by the National Museum of Canada in 1954 to replace Charles M. Sternberg, and worked in western Canada and on Prince Edward Island until 1962. One of his major finds, with Loris Russell, was the rediscovery of Sternberg's Scabby Butte Pachyrhinosaurus bonebed.
Langston, along with a small team of fieldworkers, excavated the Scabby Butte bonebed in 1957, securing several skulls and several hundred bones there. Finds that he and his students worked on include the giant pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus and a variety of Permian and Mesozoic reptiles. He retired in 1986, but continued to be active in the field.
Langston died of natural causes a few days after a Geological Society of America symposium held in his honor at the South Central Geological Society of America meeting in Austin, Texas. Animals named by Langston include the theropod Acrocanthosaurus (1950), the hadrosaurid dinosaur Lophorhothon (1960), and the microsaur Carrolla (1986). The mesoeucrocodylians Langstonia, Akanthosuchus langstoni and Albertochampsa langstoni.
Theropod Saurornitholestes langstoni. And pachycephalosaur Texacephale langstoni were named for him. , W. , W., & J.W. , W. , W. , W. , W. , W. , W. , W. , W. , W.
Member Geological Society American, Society Vertebrate Paleontology (vice president 1973-1974, president 1974-1975), American Society Ichtvol. and Herpetology, American Association Petroleum Geologists.
Married; 2 children.