RE: best dinosaur names

[evelyn sobielski <koreke77@yahoo.de>]

>  > I was glancing through an Australian bird book,
> and came across this 
>  > little gem:
>  > 
>  > The Common Noddy
>  > /Anous stolidus/ ("stupid witless bird")
>  > 
>  > Some zoologist really didn't like this poor
> animal.

They're so *docile*; when there were still many
unvisited, uninhabited Polynesian atolls, they could
just be picked up at leisure, thrown around, killed,
you name it, and they didn't do much about it except
look at those strange two-legged lifeforms with big
black beady eyes...

>  > This has now overtaken /Platycephalus /and
> /Ornithorhynchus /as my 
>  > favourite scientific name :-)
> 
> Better than Pantydraco, anyway.

That will continue to haunt me til the end of my days.

How about _Ptaiochen pau_ - "destroyed stumble-goose"
because it's extinct, it's known from fragmentary
subfossils, and its remains are often found in lava
tubes, into which, flightless as these birds were, had
accidentally fallen and perished.

Or _Aidemedia_ (named after the Aidems which assisted
in working the locality, but twisted so that it makes
an anagram).

Olson may not be good as regards phylogeny, but he
certainly has come up with a number of cool names.

Eike 


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