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Could I just say, Chris, for one moment, that I have a new theory about the Brontosaurus?
More than a century after being declared a junior synonym of Apatosaurus and demoted from the majesty of the thunder lizard to the lesser mellifluity of deception, Brontosaurus turns out to exist as a valid genus after all.
The resulting cladogram recovers the classical arrangement of diplodocid relationships. Two numerical approaches were used to increase reproducibility in our taxonomic delimitation of species and genera. This resulted in the proposal that some species previously included in well-known genera like Apatosaurus and Diplodocus are generically distinct. Of particular note is that the famous genus Brontosaurus is considered valid by our quantitative approach.
The original paper is freely available here. I don't know if this means Othniel Charles Marsh won the Bone Wars after all, but my five-year-old self who owned many small rubber dinosaurs (and one very dear mosasaur) feels vindicated. My mother wants to know if this means the ruling on Pluto is due to be reversed, too.
The resulting cladogram recovers the classical arrangement of diplodocid relationships. Two numerical approaches were used to increase reproducibility in our taxonomic delimitation of species and genera. This resulted in the proposal that some species previously included in well-known genera like Apatosaurus and Diplodocus are generically distinct. Of particular note is that the famous genus Brontosaurus is considered valid by our quantitative approach.
The original paper is freely available here. I don't know if this means Othniel Charles Marsh won the Bone Wars after all, but my five-year-old self who owned many small rubber dinosaurs (and one very dear mosasaur) feels vindicated. My mother wants to know if this means the ruling on Pluto is due to be reversed, too.
no subject
I guessed that was the case.
However, all those who'd like to see particular names on Pluto, Charon and friends should go here. The mission team are keen for more submissions (and votes!) - the themes include Underworld myth, explorers, and sf/f writers who have set stories in the Pluto system.
Oh, cool! I will probably vote a swathe of things named after Babylonian mythology—it is an excellent and underutilized underworld. Excuse me while I fall down this K-hole later, because I have to work now.
(There's already a crater named Namtar on Ganymede? And Nergal? But Ereškigal's on Venus. How confusing.)
no subject
Ereškiguys are from Mars, Ereškigals are from Venus. Easy-peasy.
no subject
. . . Well played.