Dinosaur Trivia
I thought it would be fun to spice things up with some with a quiz!
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
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How the Brontosaurus Lost its Name
Ever wonder how the Brontosaurus lost its name? Commonly known as the icon of Sinclair Oil, this sauropod’s history is complex and newsworthy.
The Brontosaurus is one of the most famous dinosaurs in the world. Millions of people know its name. Most can recognize its huge shape. It’s been on lunch boxes, made into countless toys, and was featured on a U.S. postage stamp. It even served as the official icon of Sinclair Oil company. However, there is one problem: there is no dinosaur named Brontosaurus.
How did this happen? When dinosaurs were first discovered in the 1820s, the idea of those huge reptiles stalking the earth caught people’s imagination. Every museum in the world wanted to display a huge skeleton of a dinosaur. But it takes many years to find dinosaur bones, dig them up and put together a dinosaur skeleton. Over the next sixty years the competition to discover dinosaur bones grew, and then it became especially fierce during the 1880s. In fact, that time is now known as the “Bone War.”
From 1877 to 1892, two paleontologists in particular, Edward Cope of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia and Othniel C. Marsh of the Peabody Museum in Connecticut, were the fiercest competitors. They used their own money to finance expeditions and to buy dinosaur bones from other fossil hunters.
In the beginning Cope and Marsh just paid collectors to send them fossils. But this was only the start. As the rivalry intensified, each side spied on the other, stole bones when they could, bribed workers, and even blew up fossils with dynamite so that the other side couldn’t get them. As soon as either dinosaur hunter got new bones, he rushed to get a description into print. Whoever publishes a description of a new dinosaur first gets to name it, and each man wanted to be the one to name the most. In the end Cope lost. He named 56 new dinosaur species, while Marsh named 80. And by the end of the Bone Wars in 1892, both men had gone nearly bankrupt trying to be the best (or most famous) paleontologist. And the hurry of both men led to mistakes.
In 1877 Marsh published a papernaming a new dinosaur, Apatosaurus ajax. Its name means “deceptive lizard,” which turned out to be the truth. The description was based on only a few bones. Two years later Marsh published another article describing what he thought was a different dinosaur, Brontosaurus excelsius. This description was based on one of the most complete skeletons of a long-necked dinosaur ever found. Brontosaurus means “thunder lizard,” and the catchy name became popular. The mount of that Brontosaurus skeleton in the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History increased its popularity. Unfortunately, one of the missing pieces of the skeleton was its skull. Not to worry. Marsh just put a Camarasaurus skull on it.
But, in 1903, Chicago paleontologist Elmer Riggs took a look at both dinosaurs. He determined that the two dinosaurs were actually the same dinosaur. It was given the name Apatosaurus first, and the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature states that the oldest name has priority, so that is the name used by scientists. Brontosaurus became Apatosaurus. And in 1979 scientists finally put the right skull on the skeleton. Still, the general public didn’t let go of the name Brontosaurus until about the 1990s. It was just too cool a name to let go.
However, all is not lost. There is a movement to resurrect the name Brontosaurus. In 2015 paleontologists studied hundreds of bones from Apatosaurus and the dinosaur called Brontosaurus and found differences in the neck, back, and shoulder bones. Originally scientists thought those difference were because one of the dinosaurs was a juvenile. Now some feel these differences are enough to say Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus are different dinosaurs. But this has not gained wide acceptance. More research may resolve the problem. But a lot of people who are just dinosaur lovers would welcome the return of the “thunder lizard.”
Cover Image Source: An Errant Knight, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Happy Holidays!
Happy Saturday everyone! This year has gone by so quickly and I want to thank each and every one of you for tuning in each week to my little blog.
I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
– The Dinosaur Lady
Dinosaur Jokes (By Yours Truly)
Hope everyone is adjusting to the fall nicely! Here are a few dinosaur jokes that made me chuckle. Feel free to post your own jokes in the comments down below.
Ask Me Anything
Happy Tuesday Friends! Over the last few weeks we have covered a lot of Dino-related info, from the T-Rex to the Pachycephalosaurus. I appreciate the interest you all have shown in the world of dinosaurs!
Many of you have have left thought provoking and intriguing comments and I have enjoyed reading and responding to all of them. Because of this, I thought we should have an experiment this week.
For the next week, feel free to ask me about anything, or respond to other threads or messages. The hope is that we can have fun and share interesting facts about dinosaurs!
If this goes well, maybe we have more group discussions like this in the future 🙂
Thank you all for taking the time to read my little blog. Enjoy the rest of your week and don’t forget to comment below!
4 responses to “Ask Me Anything”
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Triassic Period: Coelophysis– I have a lifesize figure of one in my living room.
Jurassic Period: Apatosaurus — I have 5′ 7″ femur from one in my living room, a gift from my husband
Cretaceous Period: Triceratops — All I have from it is a horn from its brow, but I’ve always like it best.LikeLike
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If you were being hunted by a dinosaur (pick any meat eater) how would you use your knowledge of dinosaurs to evade the predator and possibly even knock it in the noggin?
If you could have a dinosaur as a pet, which one would you choose and why?
Does it bother you when someone accuses another person of being out of date and says, “You are such a dinosaur”? Is that kind of a slam on dinosaurs?
You needn’t reply to all my questions. Pick the one(s) you like.
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Thanks for your questions!
To avoid T-rex, the last thing you want to do is stand still. If you’re a good runner, you can out-distance it. It takes very large steps, but it was probably too heavy to run for an extended period of time.
I would like a Triceratops. They’ve always been my favorite.
Telling someone they’re a dinosaur is actually a compliment and not just because they’re awesome. They managed to live on Earth for 120 million years — not bad survival skills. People wouldn’t have managed any better in the face of that asteroid.
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Tyrannosaurus Wrecks
An old dinosaur joke goes: “What happens if you let a tyrannosaur into your house?”
“Tyrannosaurus wrecks.”
In fact, that is just what would happen. The name Tyrannosaurus rex means “King of the Tyrant Lizards.” The sheer size and power of a tyrannosaur is amazing. An adult T-rex could grow up to 40 feet long. That’s four feet longer than a school bus. And it weighed about 9 tons. That’s 18,000 pounds. Its height was about 13 feet tall at its hip. (Paleontologists measure there because Tyrannosaur didn’t stand straight up.) Its head was huge – five feet long – and it had banana-shaped teeth that could grow as long as 12 inches! The teeth were also serrated, having jagged edges running up and down the front and back of the tooth. This meant it could slice through meat like a steak knife. Its bite was so powerful it could go right through almost any bone. Joseph Castro, a writer for Live Science, compared the strength of its bite to the same impact as a medium-size elephant sitting down.
T-rex lived at the very end of the reign of dinosaurs, about 68-66.5 million years ago, during what’s called the Cretaceous Period. It was first discovered in Montana in 1902, though fossils of it have been found from Canada to Texas. It was, of course, a meat-eater, a carnivore. Footprints of other, similar dinosaurs have been found showing they traveled in packs, so Tyrannosaurus might have done so, too.
For years paleontologists have argued about whether this huge creature was an active predator, hunting and killing live prey, or a scavenger, feasting on animals that were already dead. They were certainly big enough to chase other dinosaurs away from any dead animal, but many people feel Tyrannosaurus wouldn’t have been able to find enough to eat this way.
Scientists argued for years, but a study published in 2013, provided evidence supporting the idea of T-rex, the hunter. Fossils from a hadrosaur, a duckbilled dinosaur, were dug up in South Dakota, and the crown of a Tyrannosaurus tooth was found embedded in its tail. But the tail showed signs that it had healed after being bit. An already dead animal doesn’t heal. The T-rex must have attacked it, but the duckbilled dinosaur got away.
Another clue that T-rex was a hunter comes from studies that show that the powerful muscles in its legs could have allowed it to run as fast as 25 mph. A scavenger doesn’t need to run that fast, though most likely Tyrannosaurus ambushed its prey, rather than chasing it for long distances. It was just too heavy to run flat out for long. It was a sprinter, not a miler.
Just recently, an incredible fossil find has been uncovered. It was found in 2006, but lay encased in the surrounding rock for years. It shows a juvenile Tyrannosaurus seemingly locked in battle with a young Triceratops. However, scientists aren’t sure yet that they were fighting each other. Some of the Tyrannosaurus’ teeth are broken, and some tyrannosaur teeth are in the Triceratops’ bones and body cavity, but they don’t know yet if those teeth belonged to this Tyrannosaurus. If they do, they could have gotten there in a fight, or it could be that the T-Rex found a dead Triceratops and took a bite. The Tyrannosaurus’ skull is cracked, and one finger is broken. But if the two creatures were killed by a mudslide, the impact of the mud and the debris it carried might have caused those injuries. However, it is also reasonable to think that those injuries could have happened in a fight. Even though Tyrannosaurus likely was a hunter, it probably wouldn’t have turned down a meal that was already killed.
Another area of debate is why Tyrannosaurus had such small arms. They are so short T-rex couldn’t even reach its mouth with them. Some scientists argue that they are short because the dinosaur didn’t need them. With such a powerful bite, it didn’t need to fight with claws. And with so much space in its body needed for powerful neck muscles, there wasn’t much room for arm muscles. Others argue that the arm muscles were strong enough to hold struggling prey, so they were useful for something.
There are many competitors today for the title “King of the Dinosaurs.” Giganotosaurus was shaped much like Tyrannosaurus and was about eight feet longer. Spinosaurus was thinner but may have been more than 50 feet long. But size isn’t everything. Tyrannosaurus had a larger brain, which gave it exceptional sight and smell. And don’t forget that bite force. No other animal, living or extinct, has ever had a more powerful bite. For many, that means T-rex can keep its crown.
Dinosaur Lady 
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