Age:40 something (1999)

Length:5 feet 2 in.

Weight:

Favorite Food: lobster

Family: 2 Shih tzu named Athena and Kailas

Genus: Vitae scriptor

Species: 

Place of Origin: Casper, Wyoming, USA

Habitat:   Reno, Nevada, USA

Favorite Movie: The Maltese Falcon, Dracula (1931)

Favorite TV Show: X Files of course

Favorite Dinosaur: Mamenchisaurus

Favorite Sport: football(watching not playing)

Exercise: walking

Hobbies: raising gardens and Shih tzu and reading paleontology 

Distinguishing Features: My house has a witch-weathervane 

Dr. Davidson  was the 
Paleontology Author of the Month 
on 
Dinosaur Interplanetary Gazette Dino Dish 
from May 1-31, 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.

 Author of The Bone Sharp: The Life of Edward Drinker Cope

Jane P. Davidson was born in a December blizzard on the Oregon Trail.  She spent part of her childhood in the Big Muddy Oil Field of central Wyoming, learning about rocks and fossils, and part of it in New Orleans.  These locales probably helped her decide on her career paths. She always wanted to be a paleontologist, but became a historian instead.  She went to Louisiana State University where she majored in United States history as an undergraduate and took a master's degree in recent U.S. history.  But she still wanted to be a paleontologist.  She then attended the University of Kansas, living across the street from their Natural History Museum. 

She studied for a Ph.D. in history and then one day changed her mind,
walked across campus, and became an art historian.  Her field of art
history is 17th-century Flemish painting. She is the author of the only
modern biography of the 17th-century Flemish artist, David Teniers the Younger and of  The Witch in Northern European Art, 1470-1750  This last book probably reflects the shadowy influence of growing up in New Orleans.

She earned two additional master's degrees in art history and her Ph.D. which she completed in 1975.  But she still wanted to be a paleontologist. 

A few years ago she was doing some research which led her to look
carefully at the life of Edward Drinker Cope, who was one of the most important paleontologists of the 19th century.  How she got interested in Cope's life is a tale almost as long as that of Mamenchisaurus.  You can ask her or find out about it in her biography of Cope.  To say it briefly, she became fascinated with Cope and decided at once that his life needed a retelling, since no one had written a biography of him since the 1930's. In short, if one were not a paleontologist, perhaps the next best thing was to write about one. Besides she was rather tired of writing about art and wanted to write a little history again. But she still wishes she were a paleontologist.
 
 

Books by Jane P. Davidson(sometimes with others)
Some of these books may be purchased (instantly) online through our relationship with Amazon.Com. All purchases support D.I.G.

The Bone Sharp : The Life of Edward Drinker Cope 
by Jane P. Davidson ,  Our Price: $25.00,   Paperback (April 1997) 

David Teniers the Younger 
by Jane P. Davidson, This book is out of print. 

The Witch in Northern European Art, 1470-1750 
by Jane P. Davidson, This book is out of print.