Robert Lynn Carroll (born May 5, 1938, Kalamazoo, Michigan) is a vertebrate paleontologist who specializes in Paleozoic and Mesozoic amphibians and reptiles. Carroll was an only child and grew up on a farm near Lansing, Michigan. He was introduced to paleontology by his father shortly after his fifth birthday, and by the time he was eight he had decided he wanted to be a vertebrate paleontologist. In that same year he received as a Christmas present the left femur of an Allosaurus, courtesy of Edwin H. Colbert, whom his father had told about his interest. In his teen years his parents took him on many fossil hunting trips to Wyoming and South Dakota. Allosaurus was discovered by Edwin Harris Colbert at the year 1942 in Wyoming.