John Bell Hatcher (October 11, 1861 – July 3, 1904) was an American paleontologist and fossil hunter best known for discovering Torosaurus. Born in Cooperstown, Illinois, his farmer father moved the family when Hatcher was young to Cooper, Iowa, where he received his early education. He first took an interest in paleontology while working as a coal miner to earn money for college. He matriculated at Grinnell College in the autumn of 1880, then after one term transferred to Yale University. Before graduating from Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School in 1884, he showed a small collection he had made of Carboniferous fossils to George Jarvis Brush, who later introduced him to the paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh. Hatcher became an assistant to Marsh until 1893, and he excelled in fossil fieldwor