Jan. 17, 2008 - Brontosaurus or Apatosaurus?
The thing that drives me nuts more than anything else—except for squeaky markers, fingernails scraping paper, bad puns, and five hundred back-to-back renditions of ‘Three Blind Mice’—is when people refer to Apatosaurus as Brontosaurus. That is simply incorrect. When hip and backbone fossils of Apatosaurus were discovered by Othniel Marsh, the skeleton was named Apatosaurus. Later, Marsh found an almost complete skeleton that was missing its head. Instead of recognizing what he had seen before, he found a skull from a Camerosaurus in a different layer of strata, tacked it on, and named his find Brontosaurus. The confusion persisted, however, and it wasn’t until 1975 that scientists recognized their mistake. The general community, including toy dinosaur manufacturers and the U.S. Postal Service, still cling to the incorrect form.
If there’s anything more annoying than Pretence, it’s Reality. And anything that weighs a thousand pounds and bites, kicks, and stomps, must be considered Reality—John R. Erikson
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