Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi
Departamento de Paleontología de Vertebrados
Museo de Historia Natural — UNMSM
Av. Arenales 1256
Lima 14
Perú

Rodolfo Salas is the founder and director of the paleontology department at the Museo de Historia Natural-Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, Peru. He has led the way for numerous expeditions into the coastal deserts, the Andes, and the Amazon Basin of Perú. These have resulted in discoveries of scientifically important specimens, such as new species of crocodilians and even “sea sloths” from the Pico Formation, a new genus of pyrothere (Baguatherium) from the Departamento de Amazonas, and new notoungulates that came from his co-discovery of the first Deseadan (late Oligocene) locality known from Perú (Depto. de Moquegua). His duties as lab director compel him to be a jack-of-all trades, studying and publishing on a wide variety of taxa, including sharks, crocodilians, sloths, lamas, notoungulates, birds, and even insects in amber. A fossil penguin is named in his honor. He also works on all aspects of the fossils, from their discovery and excavation, to their preparation and curation, study and publication, and to the designing and building museum exhibits.