Hi Dave,
I maintain a database and can throw out a couple figures, but will no
doubt have to furnish a handful of caveats along with them. In addition,
as I'm only an enthusiast, I would strongly urge you to trust any figures
received from a paleo-pro over these!
In any event, I have a count of 2,330 species, which includes
scientifically valid and vernacular names, animals once considered to be
dinosaurs (but now known to be something else), and spelling variations. I
am confident that all appeared in print somewhere, but at present I can
link only about 45-50% of them to actual publications.
Important to note that my database is genus-centric, and while I endeavor
to keep tabs on the validity of associated type species, everything else
just gets dumped into a bucket without regard to its current status.
(Admittedly, there's not a lot of utility in this, other than being able
to plug a combination into Google and see what comes up!) For this reason,
attempts to drill down may get us closer to a meaningful number, but
cannot in any way be considered accurate. That said, it's Saturday and I
have time to construct a query or two, so let's give 'er a go anyway...
At the genus level, I have a total of 1,171 dinosaur names, and consider
893 to be scientifically valid. Of the valid names, 681 might be
considered generally well-established, the rest being junior synonyms or
nomina dubia. At this point, I am limited to simply counting the species
found in association with the valid and well-established genera. For the
former, I come up with 1,894 species names, for the latter, 1,387. I have
no doubt that these counts will be dramatically high - again, owing to the
inclusion of misspellings and the fact that I've made no effort to track
validity at the species level - but perhaps they will serve as
ultra-conservative ballpark estimates until someone can provide you with
more accurate counts.
Best regards,
Rob Taylor
Lansdale, PA, USA
rjtaylor68@comcast.net
SVP Member #15293
P.S. My database also includes pterosaurs, for which I have the following
counts. (Again, I'm an amateur, so please don't be too harsh!) 149 generic
names, of which I consider 119 to be scientifically valid, and 96 to be
generally well-established. At the species level, 555 names, with 486 of
those in association with the valid names and 431 in association with the
well-established names. I imagine the 54 species I have listed under
Ornithocheirus alone may skew the latter count by just a smidge!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Unwin, Dr D.M." <dmu1@leicester.ac.uk>
To: <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Sent: Saturday, May 03, 2008 10:34 AM
Subject: How many species of dinosaur
Dear All,
A quick question.
Can anyone tell me roughly how many species of dinosaur have been named
and, of these, roughly how many are currently considered to be valid?
Data, opinions or pointers to web/lit sources all welcome.
Ta,
Dave
PS Yes, I am writing my talk for next weeks meeting on Dinosaurs - A
Historical Perspective
http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/gsl/groups/specialist/hogg/pid/2907;jsessionid=D5B1B49C90F0B5910D7ADB4E7FFE6066
___________________________________________________________________
DAVID M UNWIN
Department of Museum Studies
University of Leicester
105 Princess Road East
LEICESTER LE1 2LG
UK
Email: dmu1@le.ac.uk
Work tel: +44 116 252 3947
Dept tel: +44 116 252 3963
Fax: +44 116 252 3960
http://www.le.ac.uk/museumstudies/contactus/davidunwin.html
____________________________________________________________________