If you've ever taken a paleontology class, you've heard that the brontosaurus is not a real type of dinosaur, despite its popularity in film. However, a new paper published in the journal PeerJ suggests the brontosaurus may have existed after all.
Charles Marsh, who discovered the brontosaurus in 1879, didn't provide enough distinction between the brontosaurus and the other dinosaur he discovered, the Apatosaurus, The Washington Post explains. The Apatosaurus skeleton he found wasn't complete, and later findings resembled both of Marsh's finds, so the dinosaurs were combined into one genus.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Cicada-geddon: the fungus that controls insects like 'zombies'Under The Radar Expert says bugs will develop 'hypersexualisation' despite their genitals falling off
-
'Voters know Biden and Trump all too well'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Is the Gaza war tearing US university campuses apart?Today's Big Question Protests at Columbia University, other institutions, pit free speech against student safety
-
Blind people will listen to next week's total eclipseSpeed Read While they can't see the event, they can hear it with a device that translates the sky's brightness into music
-
Melting polar ice is messing with global timekeepingSpeed Read Ice loss caused by climate change is slowing the Earth's rotation
-
An amphibian that produces milk?speed read Caecilians, worm-like amphibians that live underground, produce a milk-like substance for their hatchlings
-
Jupiter's Europa has less oxygen than hopedspeed read Scientists say this makes it less likely that Jupiter's moon harbors life
-
Why February 29 is a leap daySpeed Read It all started with Julius Caesar
-
US spacecraft nearing first private lunar landingSpeed Read If touchdown is successful, it will be the first U.S. mission to the moon since 1972
-
Scientists create 'meaty' rice for eco-friendly proteinSpeed Read Korean scientists have invented a new hybrid food, consisting of beef muscle and fat cells grown inside grains of rice
-
New images reveal Neptune and Uranus in different colours than originally thoughtSpeed Read Voyager 2 images from the 1980s led to 'modern misconception'
