OXFORD, England, April 7 (UPI) — The long-necked brontosaurus — one of the most recognizable dinosaurs — remains alive in the hearts and minds of children, but scientists have denied the dino a spot in the literature and on the family tree for more than a century.
A new study, however, stands to change all that — arguing that brontosaurus is indeed unique enough to warrant its own genus.
While the term brontosaurus quickly caught on with children and everyday museum goers, it was erased from the scientific literature not long after its initial establishment. When paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh discovered the long-necked dinos around the turn of the century, he decided he had happened upon two different groups.
He placed the new species — Apatosaurus ajax and Brontosaurus excelsus — into two separate genera. But when later fossils seemed to fit snugly between the two dinosaurs, scientists decided the two dinosaurs were more likely from the same genus. When they were combined, the term brontosaurus was sent packing. Brontosaurus became A. excelsus.
But new research by scientists in Europe calls for the genus to be re-established. New species unearthed in the last two decades offered researchers the chance to re-examine the similarities and differences between the originally named A. ajax and B. excelsus.
“Our research would not have been possible at this level of detail 15 or more years ago” lead researcher Emanuel Tschopp explained in a press release, “in fact, until very recently, the claim that Brontosaurus was the same as Apatosaurus was completely reasonable, based on the knowledge we had.”
There are not hard and fast rules about differentiating species and genera. Generally speaking, species in each genus will be more similar than two species from two different genera. To see how this thinking lined up with A. ajax and A. excelsus, scientists re-examined the two species similarities and differences.
Their analysis showed that the differences between A. ajax and A. excelsus were greater than the average number of differences between other related species. Additionally, there differences were equal to the number of differences justifying genus separation among other species.
“It’s the classic example of how science works,” said Octavio Mateus, a research collaborator and professor at NOVA, a public university in Portugal. “Especially when hypotheses are based on fragmentary fossils, it is possible for new finds to overthrow years of research.”
The new research was published online this week in the open source journal PeerJ.
Comment count on this article reflects comments made on Breitbart.com and Facebook. Visit Breitbart's Facebook Page.