Is the Brontosaurus Back After Nearly a Century?

Any paleontologist that is worth anything will tell you that there is no such thing as a brontosaurus. But a new paper published in PeerJ hopes to change that.

At the turn of the 20^th century, paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh discovered what became known as the "thunder lizard." Unfortunately, he did some pretty shoddy work leading to the brontosaurus being removed from the list of known giant lizards that once roamed the Earth.

Marsh found two long-necked dinosaurs around the same time. The first he named Apatosaurus ajax while the second he dubbed Bronosaurus excelsus. However the Apatosaurus wasn't very complete and he jumped the gun and declared it a new genus. Later findings seemed to sit right between the species of these two suggesting they were more closely related than Marsh had believed.

Once the species were lumped together into one genus, the first name given to their group earned the right to keep their name. Thus, the brontosaurus became combined with the Apatosaurus and the name passed into oblivion.

But according to the new study, researchers believe that there really are enough differences between Apatosaurus excelsu and Apatasaurus ajax to put them back into separate genera as Marsh had originally done. If this becomes reality, it would mean the rebirth of the Brontosaurus lines and a return of this most beloved creature.

There aren't very clear lines about defining one genus from another and it is really just a matter of scientific consensus.

The researchers didn't set out on a mission to return the brontosaurus to its former glory. They wanted to better understand how the genera Diplodocus and Apatosaurus are related. The group analyzed 81 different specimens based on 477 different characteristics and found yet another fossil that they believe deserves its own genus as well: Diplodocus hayi, which they have renamed Glaeamopus hayi. Discovering that they could bring the brontosaurus back from among the crowd turned out to be an added and unexpected bonus.

"The differences we found between Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus were at least as numerous as the ones between other closely related genera, and much more than what you normally find between species," co-author Roger Benson of the University of Oxford said in a statement.

This isn't the final victory for the brontosaurus, however. Science is and will continue to be a process and just as researchres believe they have proved that it should be considered a separate genus doesn't mean that further research won't return the name again to nothingness.