# This whole brontosaurus/apatosaurus nonsense **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 17, 2016, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812 "2016-10-17T09:43:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/1 "2016-10-17T09:43:12Z")
Okay so when I was growing up we all knew about four or five kinds of dinosaurs—tyrannosaurus rex, of course. Triceratops, stegosaurus, pterodactyl. But No. 1 or No. 2 was brontosaurus. It was very easily recognized, appeared I. Almost anything that had dinosaurs in it, and it was the easiest to draw. Bit sometime in the 1990s I started hearing “did you know?” trivia stuff to the effect that “you know, there really isn’t any such thing as a brontosaurus. It’s really an apatosaurus that got mistaken for being something separate.” I even recall articles to the effect of “the most famous dinosaur never existed.” Well now, I see there is some new doubt regarding whether the apatosaurus and brontosaurus can be considered the same. Leaving that new dispute aside, it seems stupid to me that the official line was “brontosaurus didn’t exist.” What they should have said was “brontosaurus and apatosaurus are two names for the same thing.” Further they should have said that since brontosaurus is the name everyone is familiar with, that’s the principal name and apatosaurus is the alternative name. Why didn’t they do that? ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/2 "2016-10-17T10:23:01Z")
It comes from a confusion of food names vs. animal names. There is no animal called a hamburger. The food called hamburger comes from the animal called a cow. Likewise, the popular Bronto Burger is made from the ground meat of an apatosaurus. “Bronto” is also preferred for industrial use. Note that at the Slate Rock and Gravel Company, Fred Flintstone operates a crane device that is serviced by a trained apatosaurus. Still, the device is not called an “Apato-crane”, the industry standard nomenclature has always been Bronto-crane. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/3 "2016-10-17T10:44:49Z")
Because it has not yet been settled whether they are the same thing. Paleontology is a relatively new science which really only gained any traction in the 19th century. The number of complete, intact fossils is a lot smaller than you’d suspect from listening to the popular media, and certain theories about some species have evolved [sic] over the years as new evidence has been discovered and supported or disproved whatever the current thinking was. In the case of Apato vs Bronto, there is still much debate whether Brontosaurus is just another name for Apatosaurus, whether it is a separate species, or whether it is in fact a separate genus in its own right within the Apatosaurinae subfamily. [The latest theory is tending toward it being a separate genus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brontosaurus#Classification), but there is by no means a consensus about this. So while “Brontosaurus” might well be another name for “Apatosaurus”, it might be another dinosaur entirely. But you can call it whatever you like; it’s not going to hear you. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/4 "2016-10-17T10:45:12Z")
First: panda bears are a type of bear Later in childhood: nope, they’re more related to raccoons and such, they just look like bears Much later: nope they’re bears I guess they were confusing Giant Pandas with Red Pandas, but I absolutely swear I heard this claim referring to the white and black ones who won’t mate. As a kid, I did hear that brontosaurus is just another name for apatosaurus. Part of the issue is that paleontologists both intentionally and accidentally mixed up skulls from their bodies or (in this case) never found the skull. But apparently this confusion arose in 1903(!), yet for the earlier part of my childhood it was just “brontosaurus.” And it wasn’t fixed until 2015. > [@Acsenray](#): > > Further they should have said that since brontosaurus is the name everyone is familiar with, that’s the principal name and apatosaurus is the alternative name. > > Why didn’t they do that? Because [the one that’s named first gets seniority](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synonym_(taxonomy)#Zoology). Othniel Marsh discovered both: Apatosaurus in 1877, and Brontosaurus in 1879. He was often in pressure vs. Cope to discover new stuff. So you’d better dig up an absolutely new species if you want to name Dickheadasaurus after his protuberances. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/5 "2016-10-17T11:08:34Z")
Scientists said there was no brontosaurus. The English language as it’s spoken by people says there is. The English language always wins. That’s why turtles no longer fly. And why it’s just pedantic nitpicking to say there is no brontosaurus. It’s like saying a tomato isn’t a vegetable: a good scientist will know that it isn’t incorrect to call it one. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/6 "2016-10-17T12:26:53Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > First: panda bears are a type of bear > Later in childhood: nope, they’re more related to raccoons and such, they just look like bears > Much later: nope they’re bears > > I guess they were confusing Giant Pandas with Red Pandas, but I absolutely swear I heard this claim referring to the white and black ones who won’t mate. No, you’re right: it used to be thought that Red Pandas and Giant Pandas were related. If I remember rightly, Giant Pandas have a sort of psuedo-thumb: no other bear has anything like it, but Red Pandas do. (Giant Pandas apparently use the psuedo-thumb to hold onto the bamboo shoots they’re chewing on. I don’t know what Red Pandas use them for – texting, probably). The reasoning was that it was much more likely for a relative of the Red Panda to evolve into something that happened to superficially resemble a bear, due to fitting into a similar ecological niche, than for only one type of bear to independently evolve a feature that was identical to one evolved by an entirely unrelated animal. It was only later that scientlsts were able to compare DNA and discover that the less likely scenario was the truth. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/7 "2016-10-17T12:30:17Z")
Pterodactyls aren’t dinosaurs. I only bring it up because this whole thread is about acceptable limits of pedantry. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/8 "2016-10-17T12:50:34Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Pterodactyls aren’t dinosaurs. But the lucky thing about pterodactyls is that you can’t hear them while they’re in the bathroom. …because the “P” is silent. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/9 "2016-10-17T12:55:46Z")
You’re a tad late to this rant - Stephen Jay Gould published “[Bully for Brontosaurus](http://hydrodictyon.eeb.uconn.edu/eebedia/images/e/ec/Gould1990.pdf)” in 1990. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/10 "2016-10-17T13:00:56Z")
In 1973 ornithologists decided that the Baltimore Oriole and Bullock’s Oriole were the same species, and called them all Northern Oriole. Then 1n 1994, they changed their minds, and split them back again, into the two separate species. Even while there were millions of the birds in nature, flying around, and the ornithologists could hold live specimens in their hands and dissect them and measure them in laboratories and search intermediate habitats to find and study hybrids. So, how can you expect fixed and immutable agreement on dinosaurs, based on no evidence but a few bone fragments? ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/11 "2016-10-17T13:13:12Z")
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: in the classic screwball comedy _Bringing Up Baby_, Cary Grant, playing a paleontologist, consistently uses the term “brontosaurus.” On the other hand, I would be willing to bet money that I can’t afford to lose that Cary Grant never said the word “apatosaurus” in his life. If “brontosaurus” is good enough for Cary, it’s good enough for me. Case closed. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/12 "2016-10-17T13:19:41Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > In 1973 ornithologists decided that the Baltimore Oriole and Bullock’s Oriole were the same species, and called them all Northern Oriole. Then 1n 1994, they changed their minds, and split them back again, into the two separate species. I’m now picturing some kind of Tuvix scenario involving birds here. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/13 "2016-10-17T13:29:21Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The English language always wins. > > That’s why turtles no longer fly. Forgot to throw out this question when I first saw **RealityChuck** ’s post: What flying species used to be called turtles??? ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/14 "2016-10-17T13:56:20Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > Forgot to throw out this question when I first saw **RealityChuck** ’s post: > > What flying species used to be called turtles??? Those who wrote alternate history books? ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/15 "2016-10-17T14:27:24Z")
> [@bienville](#): > > Forgot to throw out this question when I first saw **RealityChuck** ’s post: > > What flying species used to be called turtles??? A turtledove used to be called simply a _turtle_, related to Latin _turtur_. But then we imported the French word for tortoise, _tortue_, couldn’t say it well and it became _turtle_ as well. So we had two words, pronounced and spelled the same, referring to two different animals. The confusion caused the original _turtle_ to become _turtledove_. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/16 "2016-10-17T15:35:21Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > No, you’re right: it used to be thought that Red Pandas and Giant Pandas were related. If I remember rightly, Giant Pandas have a sort of psuedo-thumb: no other bear has anything like it, but Red Pandas do. (Giant Pandas apparently use the psuedo-thumb to hold onto the bamboo shoots they’re chewing on. I don’t know what Red Pandas use them for – texting, probably). Thanks, that makes sense. > [@Pleonast](#): > > A turtledove used to be called simply a _turtle_, related to Latin _turtur_. But then we imported the French word for tortoise, _tortue_, couldn’t say it well and it became _turtle_ as well. > > So we had two words, pronounced and spelled the same, referring to two different animals. The confusion caused the original _turtle_ to become _turtledove_. Not too long ago, you could order dolphin meat at restaurants, but now they ruined our fun by calling it “mahi mahi.” ETA: and according to Wikipedia they have tons of binomial synonyms! ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/17 "2016-10-17T15:58:29Z")
The issue was that the Brontosaurus was Animal A’s skull on Animal B’s body. So it didn’t exist in the same way that sticking a tiger skull on a leopard skeleton and calling it a “Jophiel Cat” doesn’t make “Jophiel Cat” just another name for a leopard. Jophiel Cats just don’t exist. Although, last I heard, there were other differences in the skeleton to suggest that it actually was somehow distinct from the apatosaurus, skull aside, and “Brontosaurus” could be a legitimate animal. Not really my sphere of learning though. ---
**Author:** ![Alan\_Smithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2acd7d/32.png) [@Alan\_Smithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alan_Smithee)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/18 "2016-10-17T16:01:36Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Scientists said there was no brontosaurus. There’s your problem right there. You should never listen to people who don’t exist, and scientists (possibly unlike brontosauri) definitely do not exist. I can prove it as follows: 1. My father is a scientist (a biologist, in fact). 2. I am not a scientist. 3. From 1 and 2 it follows that no clade exists that includes all scientists and excludes all non-scientists. 4. Therefore, by the current standards of biological science, scientists do not exist. QED. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/19 "2016-10-17T16:01:54Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > First: panda bears are a type of bear > Later in childhood: nope, they’re more related to raccoons and such, they just look like bears > Much later: nope they’re bears Wait, seriously, we’re back to bears now? How are people supposed to keep up with this? FFS. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2016, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812/20 "2016-10-17T16:30:43Z")
I believe DNA was required to establish that Giant Pandas are actually bears. The confusion was understandable before that. Raccoons ancestors seem to be related to bear’s ancestors. The Red Panda was equally difficult to classify previously, so the slight similarity to Giant Pandas was sometimes used to relate the species, but only distantly that I recall, and it now seems they are only as closely related as any randomly selected mammalian species would be. As for Brontosaurs, of course there was such a thing, the argument is about naming, which is nothing but the arbitrary process. We know the beasts existed, the naming argument has become silly now, note posts #7 and #9, in an uproar about postage stamps portraying ‘dinosaurs’ more argument ensued over the use of the name ‘brontosaurus’ than the classifying pterodactyls as ‘dinosaurs’. Anyway, as someone pointed out to me, one of the best sources for clarifying the current use of terminology in such cases is middle-schoolers who will be provided the latest information on the subject as opposed to when some of us were school aged not long after the reign of dinosaurs. And they will one day have to check with the younger generations when we find out that whales are actually more closely related to rose bushes than hippopotami\* or some other surprise that advances in science will discover. \*Go ahead and make the silly pedantic argument over the plural, everybody knows what it means. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/this-whole-brontosaurus-apatosaurus-nonsense/768812.md?page=2)