The King has Returned

It was perhaps the only dinosaur in the universe to break past the smothering record set by T. rex. From it's discovery by Othniel Charles Marsh at the height of the legendary Bone Wars, it was the quintessential dinosaur; Enormous, awe-inspiring, a symbol of the unimaginable ecosystems of the past. It was featured in children's books, postage stamps, and company logos.  It even shaped the world of animated cinematography; Gertie the Dinosaur, one of the first animated films ever produced, featured it as its main protagonist. Its name became a household word; Brontosaurus. The Thunder Lizard.

But google "Brontosaurus" and what you'll find on any respectable website (so long as it hasn't been updated in the past day or so) is that it doesn't actually exist. This dinosaur, so charismatic as to shape human history, was sunk into the far less famous Apatosaurus as a juniour synonym. You see, the Bone Wars was a time of intense competition between Marsh and his rival, Edward Drinker Cope. It was a race to see who could name the most and the best species of dinosaur. Mistakes were made. Previous discoveries were overlooked. Bones were destroyed due to frantic excavation and handling. So perhaps it's not surprising that, twenty-four years after news of Marsh's discovery hit the newspapers, scientists decried Brontosaurus as just another Apatosaurus. It didn't help that Marsh had reconstructed the missing skull based on that of a totally unrelated sauropod, Camarasaurus.

In the wake of this not-so-startling realization, every palaeo-nerd and dinosaur book worth its salt threw itself against the wall of human ignorance, hammering into the populace's head the fact that Brontosaurus did not exist. Even so, it took nearly a century for the word to die down in everyday usage. Only the blockbuster ratings of Jurassic Park could shove a certain upstart carnivore into Brontosaurus' place in the public eye.

And then yesterday, on April 7th 2015, a group of men including Emanuel Tschopp, Octavio Mateus, and Roger Benson published a paper which turned the efforts of the palaeo-nerds and dinosaur books on their heads.

Turns out the skeleton that Marsh put the head of a Camarasaurus on wasn't actually an Apatosaurus. It was similar, to be sure; smaller, perhaps, just a bit less clunky. But it was sufficiently different enough to merit it's own genus. So now, in addition to Apatosaurus ajax and Apatosaurus louisiae, we now have Brontosaurus excelsus. The paparazzi is understandably in an uproar. The things they've been told by every dinosaur-loving kid for the past hundred years has been obliterated; Brontosaurus exists.

The King of Dinosaurs has returned.