The Brontosaurus was a dinosaur we all loved.
Then we were told it wasn’t real.
Now it’s back.
What’s going on???
Hello Everyone, Crystal here with more DNews!
What picture pops into your head when I say the word “dinosaur”?
If you’re like me it’s either Brontosaurus, Triceratops, or Tyrannosaurus
rex.
It doesn’t matter that now I know better, no amount of scientific training can make
me un-see The Land Before Time.
But Littlefoot wasn’t the beginning of our cultural love-affair with Brontosaurus.
Everyone’s favorite dinosaur that wasn’t Brontosaurus excelsus thundered onto the scene
in 1879 when paleontologist Othneil Charles Marsh published a paper titled “Notice of
New Jurassic Reptiles” and Brontosaurus (basically due to an excellent PR team) quickly
became the pattern card for our idea of these giant lizards.
But Marsh had discovered many similar fossils and Brontosaurus’s problems began around
1903 when a more in-depth analysis of Marsh’s collection by another paleontologist, revealed
that the differences between Brontosaurus and the earlier-named Apatosaurus were too
slight for the two to be more than different species.
Remember the biological taxonomy Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species?
Well Apatosaurus became the common genus and what we know as the Brontosaurus was demoted
to Apatosaurus excelsus.
But the name Brontosaurus refused to fade into the mists!
It was so beloved it took more than 50 years for museums to consistently present the dinosaur
under its correct classification and use of the name in pop culture and childrens books
persisted almost until present day -- because science literacy is not really a thing in
this country
Speaking of museums, you may have heard a rumor that the existence of Brontosaurus was
a simple case of mistaken identity when a Camarasaurus head was incorrectly matched
to an Apatosaurus body, but this isn’t really true.
Yes, at one time we thought the Apatosaurus skull looked similar to Camarasaurus but identification
of Brontosaurus as a genus had nothing to do with the mix and match.
In fact, we didn’t know what the skull of Apatosaurus looked like until the late 70s
when a fossil discovered in the early 1900s was confirmed to belong to Apatosaurus.
So what happened?
Just when we were accepting that Brontosaurus was a thing of the past (*rim shot*) the name
Brontosaurus has returned!!!
Well, this is how science works.
It’s a process, and new technologies and insights can render previous ways of thinking
obsolete.
Also, when it comes to naming really old organisms scientists are constantly refining their approach.
In this case, an international team of scientists performed one of the most extensive specimen-based
phylogenetic analysis of sauropod dinosaurs!
The specimens were scored for 477 morphological characters.
The paper, published in the journal PeerJ contains a provocative statement: “Of particular
note is that the famous genus Brontosaurus is considered valid by our quantitative approach.”
Now, this issue is by no means settled, other researchers in the field have to agree, and
that hasn’t happened yet.
One of the most important aspects of science is reproducibility.
If your colleagues can’t reproduce your experiment and results, and draw the same
conclusion, your “finding” remains just “opinion” and *that* isn’t very scientific.
But we have hope!
And while experts like my friend Brian Switek warn that our old idea of Brontosaurus, as
a large, dumb, water loving animal will never again see the light of day.
A lighter, more streamlined, version may once again take pride of place in our museum halls
and textbooks.
What do you think?
Should Brontosaurus return?
Subscribe to DNews and let us know in the comments down below.
And for more nerdy fun, follow me on Twitter: @PolycrystalhD