Re: Qantasaurus

[Jonathon Woolf <jwoolf@erinet.com>]

Matt D. Celeskey wrote:
> 
> Dr. Paul Willis wrote:
> 
> >And yse, the name is after the airline (Queensland And Northern Territory
> >Air Service).
> 
> I found this interesting after the recent posts on corporate sponsorship. I
> don't want to open up a can of worms here, but I wanted to know if I was 
> correct
> in assuming that this is a way to honor a corporation-funded dig?
> 
> The same question goes for _Atlascoposaurus_.
> 
> And, if this is indeed the case, are there other examples of dinosaurs named
> after [to flatter?] sponsors? The only others that immediately come to mind 
> are
> _Diplodocus carnegii_ and _Apatosaurus louisae_, after the robber-baron and 
> his
> wife, respectively.

The most egregious case I know of: back in summer '93, some newly
discovered ankylosaur got a specific name built of initials from the
JURASSIC PARK production crew's names.  Don't remember the name.  I do
seem to recall that the fossil so named was fragmentary and not highly
diagnostic, so it may yet turn out to be a nomen dubium.

Then there are more pedestrian cases, like Jack Horner giving
_Maiasaura_ a specific name that used the name of the folks who owned
the land where it was found.  Or the AMNH naming _Protoceratops_ for its
discoverer, Roy Chapman Andrews.

-- JSW