Dr. Alan Grant is the main protagonist in the first novel, and the first and third films. In the novel, he is described as a barrel-chested bearded man of forty, with a strong affinity for children, especially those interested in dinosaurs. Grant, based on paleontologists Philip J. Currie and Jack Horner, is said to be one of the world's most renowned paleontologists, specializing in hadrosaur and other duck-billed dinosaurs such as "Maiasaura". His scientific achievements, including the first description of maiasaurs, are those of Horner and Robert R. Makela. In the book, Grant tells the children that he once had a wife who died years previously.