Samuel Wendell Williston

Samuel Wendell Williston
Born	(1852-07-10)July 10, 1852 Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Died	August 30, 1918(1918-08-30) (aged 66) Chicago, Illinois, United States
Nationality	American
Citizenship	United States
Alma mater	Kansas State Agricultural College Yale University
Known for	Allosaurus, Diplodocus, illustrations, terrestrial origin of bird flight
Scientific career
Fields	Paleontology
Institutions	Yale University University of Kansas University of Chicago
Doctoral students	Maurice Mehl
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Samuel Wendell Williston (July 10, 1852 – August 30, 1918) was an American educator, entomologist, and paleontologist who was the first to propose that birds developed flight cursorially (by running), rather than arboreally (by leaping from tree to tree). He was a specialist on the flies, Diptera.

He is remembered for Williston's law, which states that parts in an organism, such as arthropod limbs, become reduced in number and specialized in function through evolutionary history.