Favorite Food: Pizza

Family: Wife, 2 daughters (world class lazy dog)

Genus: Brontopodus

Species: 

Place of Origin: Greensburg, Indiana

Habitat:  Auburn, Indiana

Favorite Movie: King Kong, Jurassic Park, The Time Machine, The Gods Must Be Crazy

Favorite TV Show: Nature, Nova, MST3K

Favorite Dinosaur: Tyrannosaurus

Favorite Sport:  baseball

Exercise: jogging,weight-lifting

Hobbies: reading, writing (he published two SF stories in Analog in the 1970s), model railroading

Distinguishing Features: a blank look and a stupid grin

Dr. Farlow was the Paleontologist of the Month on Dinosaur Interplanetary Gazette Dino Dish from February 1-28, 1999

Vera Velociraptor's Very Vast, Verbose, Voracious Vocabulary 

Students? Pay Attention! Be sure to check out that is to say, investigate, (humph), certain other useful pieces of terminology at the 7V-WOW Archives.

     Jim majored in zoology at Indiana University, where he did undergraduate research on the ecology and behavior of streamside  salamanders.  After graduation he spent a summer at the Savannah River  Ecology Laboratory in South Carolina, where he was part of a team studying the growth rates of turtles in thermally polluted waters.

     These early academic experiences left Jim confused over whether he  wanted to be an ecologist or a paleontologist, and so when he went to Yale University for graduate studies he tried to do both, studying  paleontology with  Dr. John H. Ostrom, but also doing research on the  food habits of deep-sea fishes and crabs.  After getting his PhD Jim landed a job in a geology department as a paleontologist, thus  settling the question of what he would be when he grew up.

     Jim has done research on the function of Stegosaurus  plates, the shape and function of theropod teeth, and the paleoecology of dinosaur communities.  His current research is concerned with how exactly we can identify the makers of dinosaur footprints; in the course of this work he has done experiments with footprint formation by large ground  birds, and has measured bird, theropod and ornithopod foot skeletons  in museums around the world.  Jim has also recently begun work on a very diverse Late Tertiary fossil vertebrate site in central Indiana.

     Jim is co-editor of  The Complete Dinosaur, Indiana University Press. 

      He lives in northern Indiana with his wife, two daughters, and the  world's laziest dog.

Books by Dr. Farlow (sometimes with others)
The Complete Dinosaur by Michael Brett-Surman and James O.  Farlow. 1998.

Dinosaur Tracks : Paul Paluxy River (Baylor Geological Studies) by James Farlow  Out of Print

The Great Hunters : Meat-Eating Dinosaurs and Their World  by James O. Farlow, Ralph E. Molnar, Bob Walters (Illustrator), Brian Franczak Reading level: Ages 9-12, School & Library Binding - 64 pages (March 1995) 

On the Tracks of Dinosaurs : A Study of Dinosaur Footprints
by James O. Farlow, Doris Tischler (Illustrator),  Reading level: Ages 9-12,  School & Library Binding - 64 pages (March 1991),   Franklin Watts, Incorporated; ISBN: 0531109917 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.47 x 10.33 x 7.76 

Paleobiology of the Dinosaurs (Geological Society of America, Special Paper, No. 238)  by James O. Farlow (Editor)  Out of Print