Apparently the skeletons originally designated Brontosaurus, then later re-classified as the already-named Apatosaurus, have now been found to differ in so many details that they’re considering re-naming it Brontosaurus:
http://news.yahoo.com/extinct-no-longer-brontosaurus-may-comeback-115118481.html
This doesn’t mean that old rounded head is coming back, though. That head with its straight-up peglike teeth was based on that of Camarasaurus, since the American Museum specimen was lacking a skull. It has become the standard head of Brontosaurus in all those Charles Knight paintings, as well as in movies from the Lost World (1925), through King Kong (1933) , to * The Animal World* and Dinosaurus and, arguably, to King Kong (2005). The real Brontosaurus head, like the Apatosaurus head, looked more buck-toothed, with front teeth extending forward.
Excellent news, as I have long preferred the name Brontosaurus. It’s just cooler, and everybody knows that.
Observe that in the classic screwball comedy, Bringing Up Baby, Cary Grant consistently refers to the beast in question as a Brontosaurus. By contrast, I would bet almost any amount of money that Cary Grant never said the word “Apatosaurus” in his life.
If “Brontosaurus” is good enough for Cary, it’s good enough for me, the scientific community be damned!
Well, as long as the theory of the brontosaurus can stand unassailable — and that’s the important thing — despite the fashion whims of science — Pluto, anyone? — there is little cause to person the ramparts.
If brontosaurus is good enough for Anne Elk, it’s good enough for me — and it should be good enough for you.
Awww, I thought this was going to be about a crazy cloning plan going on in Japan or Russia or something, my pants were already halfway down. You kids and your click-baity titles !
Hmmm. I liked having the name “Brontosaurus” for the mistake that persisted for so long, and was such an iconic dinosaur-- the Apatosaur skeleton with the Camarasaur head. What are we going to call that now? It’s sort of like “Piltdown Man,” albeit, Brontosaurus was never a hoax, in that it persisted for so long, and affected theory and study and research for so long, it’s hard to just erase it from the record. I understand that the rules of scientific nomenclature dictate that that species, if it is a species, must be called “Brontosaurus,” but what will we call the old mistake?
