He was my favorite dinosaur when I was little. I pictured
him swaying back and forth on his tree-trunk legs, the way elephants do. I imagined
him peacefully grazing through the tops of trees as his tail followed 90 feet
behind. I even loved his name. Brontosaurus – thunder lizard – must surely have
made a deafening noise wherever he went. It was such a disappointment to find
it wasn’t really his name at all. Othniel Charles Marsh discovered what he felt
were two distinct species in 1903, calling one Brontosaurus and the other Apatosaurus
(deceptive lizard). Since Apatosaurus was named first, both were given that
name when it was decided that they were actually one species. Now it seems the
tables are turned. Emanuel Tschopp from the New University of Lisbon has
offered proof that Marsh was right in the first place. Bronto is back, and he’s
bigger than ever. Now if they can just save poor Pluto.
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