Resident Paleontologist: Brontosaurus

It's fairly recently that the term "Brontosaurus" dropped out of use--as recent as the past 20 years (one of the reasons many still use the politically incorrect term--the change was made over the course of my lifetime). These days, the proper name for the Jurassic "Thunder Lizard" is Apatosaurus (latin, Deceptive Lizard). This name is rarely used in popular culture (even Firefox tried to auto-correct the term when I just typed it in to "Brontosaurus"). What happened? Lets take a trip back in time...

Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus was a quadrupedal sauropod that lived in the Jurassic Period. It lumbered on four legs and most likely traveled in herds across plains, constantly in search of food. The old skeletal model for the creature had the legs splayed-out from under it's body, taking a note from reptiles of today such as the komodo dragon. This would mean that the animal would have to stay in lakes or swamps, otherwise it would not be able to support its own weight. Notable modern paleontologists such as Dr. Robert Baker (my personal favorite!) have since changed the model to one where the legs are directly beneath the body. This allows the creature to leave the swamps--and is therefore more consistent with paleontological findings.

The mid-1800's are heralded by some as the golden years of paleontology, and with such big names as Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, who is to argue? The two paleontologists had a disagreement over digging rights in a boneyard in New Jersey (Cope accused Marsh of bone-jacking) and eventually decided to have a competition over who could unearth the most new species of dinosaur. You can tell where this is going--each scientist threw out proper procedure and thoroughness in order to get the most dinosaur species "under their belts"; the two would often use incomplete or inaccurate data and that may be the first time I have ever used a semicolon!).

The honors for the first recorded reference to the dinosaur in question go to Marsh, who wrote two paragraphs on the creature's vertebra (and nothing else). Thus Apatosaurus, the "deceptive lizard" was born. In the spirit of the competition, Marsh found the pelvis and vertebrae of what he described as a separate sauropod estimated at 75 feet in length, much larger than the first. This he named Brontosaurus, the "thunder lizard".

By 1905 a complete skeleton of the creature was found and displayed at Yale. The name on the plaque was "Brontosaurus". The "Apatosaurus" skeleton was never completed. As early as 1903 the truth started coming out--the Apatosaurus creature was simply a juvenile Brontosaurus, and Marsh, in his haste to beat Cope, failed to note this. Now, since the name Apatosaurus was coined first, it was established as the official technically correct name for the creature, and Brontosaurus as its synonym.

The growing suspicion about the completed Yale "Brontosaurus" skeleton was that the skull was incorrect. In the 1970's the true skull was found and the other, misplaced skull was identified as belonging to a Camarasaurus. Scientists began pushing for the technical name Apatosaurus to be used at this point--I guess to cover up the whole headless Brontosaurus mistake.

In the end, both Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus are acceptable terms to describe the same famous sauropod, but the later is the more correct. A near-analog to this would be the case of the guinea pig.

"Silence and Valor"
-B