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Re: [dinosaur] Diplodocus status



Another Morrison sauropod for which this issue arises is Apatosaurusâthe "effective type species" is arguably A. louisae, not the official type species A. ajax. It's clear that Tschopp et al's case for genus-level separation of Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus is more strongly based on separation between Brontosaurus and A. louisae than it is based on separation between Brontosaurus and A. ajax, so if Tschopp et al's implied weights results turned out to be correct and the "effective type species" concept was followed, we could end up with the combination Brontosaurus ajax, and that seems like a troubling outcome (the overall weakness of Tschopp et al's argument that Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus are separate is an issue for another time).

Surely if D. longus and D. carnegii were demonstrated to pertain to separate genera, it would be its own kind of troubling if D. longus was no longer Diplodocus, especially if it was demonstrated to be valid after all (as I think would be likely in any universe where D. longus and D. carnegii are shown to not be closely related). Furthermore, at least one skullâUSNM 2672âmay belong to D. longus, whereas D. carnegii has no possible skulls known. So I'm not so sure that in that hypothetical scenario keeping the name Diplodocus for D. carnegii rather than D. longus would be so obviously the right decision.