Re: Dinosaur Genera List update #186

[Mike Taylor <mike@tecc.co.uk>]

> Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 18:51:34 EDT
> From: Dinogeorge@aol.com
> 
> << But as Kevin Coster was once told, "If you ignore them, they will go
>  away", no?  Wouldn't that be better?  As Jamie's original message
>  points out, "These [names] are [...] completely, utterly useless to
>  science." >>
> 
> [...] would it not be interesting to know whether paleontologists
> such as Seeley, Owen, Cope, and Marsh had considered other names for
> their fossils before publishing the names they eventually did?

Er ... yeah ...

> For example, it was going to be Utahraptor spielbergi before it
> became Utahraptor ostrommaysorum. The former name appeared only in a
> Walt Disney digest article, as far as I know.  And Barnum Brown was
> going to name Kritosaurus Nectosaurus, until he learned that
> Nectosaurus had been used a few years earlier for an aquatic reptile
> and had to choose another name.

OK, I admit these are all interesting examples!  So I guess, we'd
agree with Jaime that the names have no _scientific_ value, but they
do have historical and entertainment value.  OK, I'm convinced!

Thanks for filling me in.

 _/|_    _______________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor   <mike@miketaylor.org.uk>   www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "Computers are useless.  They can only give you answers" --
         Pablo Picasso.