Re: [dinosaur] Ninjatitan, new titanosaur (earliest known) from Lower Cretaceous of Argentina

["Yazbeck, Thomas" <yazbeckt@msu.edu>]

There are even simpler puns, like Balaenoptera musculus, which might be another subtle one from Linnaeus.

Thomas Yazbeck

---

From: dinosaur-l-request@mymaillists.usc.edu <dinosaur-l-request@mymaillists.usc.edu> on behalf of David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>
Sent: Tuesday, March 2, 2021 12:08 PM
To: dinosaur-l@usc.edu <dinosaur-l@usc.edu>
Subject: Re: [dinosaur] Ninjatitan, new titanosaur (earliest known) from Lower Cretaceous of Argentina

 

The Ninja Turtles started as a parody of other violent comics.

I don't see references to modern mythology as different from references to Classical mythology. If the allusion fits well, why not.

>From Linnaeus onward there's a tradition of _mocking_ Classical mythology. Triton the merman? The newts (now replaced by *Triturus*, which probably had priority). Siren, the kind of woman everyone finds irresistible? A drab-looking aquatic salamander without hindlimbs – and on top of that the sea cows are Order Sirenia. Bellerophon the hero? A Paleozoic snail. And so on.