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Robert J. Gay

American paleontologist

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ24572599 ↗
Source-derived summary

Robert Joseph Gay is an American Paleontologist known for his work in the Chinle and Kayenta Formations in the southwest United States. He is known for his studies of cannibalism in Coelophysis and sexual dimorphism in Dilophosaurus, and his fieldwork in Bears Ears National Monument. In 2017, he and coauthors formally published their study on the oldest known dinosaur from Utah, a neotheropod that is likely an animal similar to Coelophysis. Robert Gay is currently the Curator of Education at the Idaho Museum of Natural History

Discoveries

In the summer of 2015, Gay discovered the first occurrence of Crosbysaurus from the Triassic of Utah. In 2017, Robert Gay and others published their discovery on the oldest known dinosaur from Utah, a small Coelophysis-like neotheropod from the Upper Triassic Chinle Formation.

Publications and Abstracts

Gay, R. J., Huttenlocker, A. K., Irmis, R.B., Stegner, M.A., & Uglesich, J. (2020). Paleontology of Bears Ears National Monument (Utah, USA): History of exploration, study, and designation. Geology of the Intermountain West, 7, 205-241.

Jenkins, Xavier A.; Foster, John R.; Gay, Robert J. First unambiguous dinosaur specimen from the Upper Triassic Chinle formation in Utah. Geology of the Intermountain West, [S.l.], v.

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Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Robert J. Gay” is american paleontologist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Robert, American and paleontologist, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2017, 2015, 2020—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Robert, American and paleontologist is the immediate research focus.
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This entry incorporates text from “Robert J. Gay” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.