Is that the proper name for the Tyrannosaurus Rex,
I think someone told me that the ‘Rex’ was wrong. Is it?
What do you mean by “proper name”? In sientific circles, it’s Tyrannosaurus rex (note the italics and the lower case specific name). In abbreviated form, it would be T. rex. In Jurassic Park circles, it’s “T-Rex” (probably about as close to a “common name” as you’re likely to find, since most dinosaurs are known to the public simply by their genus). But rex is the proper specific name for the species.
There are also other species of Tyrannosaurus (that is, within the genus Tyrannosaurus): T. bataar, T. efremovi, and possily T. zhuchengensis, for example.
Just a WAG, but your friend might have been objecting to the hybrid Greek/Latin term.
Tyrannos: (Greek) a lord and master
Sauros: (Greek) lizard
Rex: (Latin) a king
Some people get in a twist over that kind of thing.
FWIW, I’ve never seen the term being disputed, but my qualifications as a paleontologist are pretty much nil.
Tyrannosaurus rex (king tyrant-lizard, in Latin) is the most widely accepted scientific name for the species, described by Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1905. “Rex” is the species name. Some other species have been proposed to belong to the same genus, including Tyrannosaurus gigantus and Tyrannosaurus stanwinstonorum, but these are not generally regarded as valid. Also, as Darwin’s Finch mentions, some Asian species originally described in the genus Tarbosaurus are sometimes placed in Tyrannosaurus, such as Tyrannosaurus (Tarbosaurus) bataar.
Some fragmentary remains of a juvenile of what might possibly be the same species as T. rex were described earlier (1892), under the name Aublysodon amplus. If this were accepted, then this would be the proper name of the species. However, it has been decided that these fragments are not really identifiable, so that Aublysodon becomes a '“nomen dubium” (uncertain name) and cannot be used. Tyrannosaurus rex has officially been declared a “nomen conservandum,” (conserved name), which means it remains the official name even if new evidence comes to light about Aublysodon.
Classification of Tyrannosaurus rex:
http://dinosauricon.com/genera/tyrannosaurus.html
Well, technically, Tyrrannosaurus Rex is incorrect, even without going into cladistics, systematics and recent findings in paeontology. The genus name name is always capitalized, but the species name is always lower case. “T. rex” was a dinosaur. “T. Rex” was a influential rocker of the 70s (who may still be recording)
Kizarvexius, your post about mixing languages, and those who get upset about it, reminds me of a passage from the novel by H. Beam Piper titled The Other Human Race. One character is objecting to the term “Fuzzyologist”, to be used in the description of those who study a species called Fuzzies.
*“I deplore that term, Mr. Grego. The suffix is Greek, from ‘logos’. Fuzzy is not a Greek word, and should not be combined with it.”
“Oh rubbish, Ernst. We’re not speaking Greek; we’re speaking Lingua Terra(her Grego goes on to describe the evolution of their language, then he continues)And you’d better learn to like the term, because it’s your new title. Chief Fuzzyologist; fifteen per cent salary increase.”
Mallin gave one of his tight little smiles. “For that, I believe I can condone a linguistic barbarism.”*
Actually a band rather than an individual. They broke up following the death of the lead vocalist, Marc Bolan, in 1978. Between 1967 and ’70 they called themselves Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Regarding the objectionable mixture of Greek and Latin, I remember a story about the newspaper editor who predicted that no good would come of the newly invented television on the same grounds. But Merriam-Webster claims tyrannosaurus comes from New Latin. The source Greek words both end in -os rather than -us. Can anyone confirm that Greek-derived components of taxonomic names are presumed to have been introduced via Latin rather than directly into our mother tongues from Greek?
New Latin is lexicographer code meaning “non-Latin word that someone has tacked a Latin inflection onto”. Ignore it and look at where the word really comes from.
Minor trivia: Tyrannosaurus rex is one of the few animals where the common, everyday name is the same as that of genus+species. The only other one I know of is Boa constrictor. I’m not a biologist, so there may be others I’m unaware of.
But enough of these childish things. Don’t you guys know that Trex are for kids?
To correct myself, T. bataar is properly placed in the genus Tarbosaurus - which is now consdiered valid, and not synonymous with Tyrannosaurus after all. Other genera which are considered synonymous with Tyrannosaurus, however, are Dinotyrannus, Dynamosaurus, Manospondylus, Nanotyrannus and Stygivenator. Aublsyodon, as noted by Colibri, remains a nomen dubium, as the type specimen consists of but a few teeth (which most researchers feel are Tyrannosaurus teeth anyway). Thus, it may be synonymous with Tyrannosaurus, or the teeth could belong to some other tyrannosaurid; the former case is the one most researchers accept, and many thus consider Aublysodon to also be a synonym of Tyrannosaurus.
IIRC taxonomy goes according to the “Latin Greek” formula to increase the names available and to make it clear to the scientists that something in Latin must be the genus while something in Greek must be the other bit.
I speak neither language and am not a taxonomist.
The name doesn’t even have to be Latin (or Greek), it just has to be “Latinized” - usually by tacking on a Latin suffix or some such. Thus, we wind up with names like the afore mentioned stanwinstonorum or any of the Chinese-named dinosaurs (like the also-aforementioned T. zhuchengensis).
Besides which, many (if not most) dinosaur genera are derived from Greek, rather than Latin. And we also have critters like Torvosaurus in which the name is a Greek and Latin composite (torvus is Latin, while sauros is Greek). Velociraptor is one of the relatively rare “Latin only” dinosaur genera.
And just to expand a little on what I said earlier, Aublysodon is a somewhat unusual case of being a senior, rather than a junior, synonym. Although having been described earlier it would normally take precedence, even if a researcher fully accepts that it is the same as Tyrannosaurus, the latter, having been declared a nomen conservandum, remains the official name. This happens in cases where a name has been so generally accepted for so long it is decided to retain it in the interest of stability in nomenclature, even if it goes against the strict rule of priority.
This is probably what should have happened in the well known case of Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus, but nomen conservandum status has not been granted to Brontosaurus.