Re: [dinosaur] naming Was Re: RETRACTION: Oculudentavis, new smallest known Mesozoic bird in amber from Cretaceous of Myanmar

[Mickey Mortimer <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com>]

While I couldn't care less about proper Latin or Greek formulation in names, one of my pet peeves is choosing a name that is either an informal name for another specimen or so similar to an existing name that it's bound to cause confusion.  For instance, the South Korean dromaeosaurid femur DGBU-78 was known as "Koreanosaurus" since 1979, then Huh et al. (2010) described a new ornithopod from the country as Koreanosaurus.  Or how recently, Dong et al. (2020) named a new choristodere Heishanosaurus when Bohlin back in 1953 named Heishansaurus as a new taxon of ankylosaur, which was already being misspelled Heishanosaurus as early as Dong (1979).  Anyone googling "Heishanosaurus" would have received plenty of results for the dinosaur, which should have tipped off the authors another name would be better.

Mickey Mortimer

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From: Rubén Juárez <rubendjuarez@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, July 26, 2020 11:24 AM
To: Yazbeck, Thomas <yazbeckt@msu.edu>
Cc: Mike Taylor <sauropoda@gmail.com>; Thomas Richard Holtz <tholtz@umd.edu>; mickey_mortimer111@msn.com <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com>; Gregory Paul <gsp1954@aol.com>; Paul P <turtlecroc@yahoo.com>; dinosaur-l@usc.edu <dinosaur-l@usc.edu>
Subject: Re: [dinosaur] naming Was Re: RETRACTION: Oculudentavis, new smallest known Mesozoic bird in amber from Cretaceous of Myanmar

 

> Regarding *Argentinosaurus*, perhaps it's an example of a nationalist motivation for the name. 

 >>  Names are generally chosen by the authors of the paper. I fear that all too often this done precipitously and with little thought — one egregious example is that of discovering the world largest every terrestrial animal and thinking, "Well, we found it in Argentina, I guess we'll call it Argentinosaurus".  

In this regard, I found the act of naming based in a geographical region, province or state as a common usage in paleontology and is not "egregious". I can list a brief example of taxa named based north american U.S. states:

Alabamasauripus
Arizonasaurus
Arizonerpeton
Arkansaurus
Dakotadon
Dakotarapor
Montanalestes
Montanazhdarcho
Montanoceratops
Oklatheridium
Ozraptor
Texacephale
Texasetes
Utahceratops
Utahdactylus
Utaherpeton
Utahgenys
Utahraptor

Best regards, Rubén.

Rubén Darío Juárez Valieri
Secretaría de Cultura de la Provincia de Río Negro

General Roca, Río Negro, Argentina
rubendjuarez@gmail.com
+5492984356133

El sáb., 25 jul. 2020 a las 22:45, Yazbeck, Thomas (<yazbeckt@msu.edu>) escribió:

Marinate indeed. I suspect your approach, Mike, is responsible for most of the best binomials in science, especially in the more recent decades where Latin/Greek proficiency has diminished. 

Regarding *Argentinosaurus*, perhaps it's an example of a nationalist motivation for the name.

Thomas Yazbeck

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From: Mike Taylor <sauropoda@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2020 4:40 PM
To: Yazbeck, Thomas <yazbeckt@msu.edu>
Cc: Thomas Richard Holtz <tholtz@umd.edu>; mickey_mortimer111@msn.com <mickey_mortimer111@msn.com>; Gregory Paul <gsp1954@aol.com>; Paul P <turtlecroc@yahoo.com>; dinosaur-l@usc.edu <dinosaur-l@usc.edu>
Subject: Re: [dinosaur] RETRACTION: Oculudentavis, new smallest known Mesozoic bird in amber from Cretaceous of Myanmar

 

On Sat, 25 Jul 2020 at 20:47, Yazbeck, Thomas <yazbeckt@msu.edu> wrote:

Not to get too off topic, but I am curious, how *do* paleontologists create names? Are names decided on immediately when a specimen is suspected to be a new taxon? Are they done at the last minute or does the decision vary depending on who is involved (e.g. do lead authors usually get the privilege of naming or can names be decided on collectively?)

Names are generally chosen by the authors of the paper. I fear that all too often this done precipitously and with little thought — one egregious example is that of discovering the world largest every terrestrial animal and thinking, "Well, we found it in Argentina, I guess we'll call it Argentinosaurus".

On the couple of occasions I've had the privilege of being involved in naming new dinosaurs, I and my co-authors have taken time to think through the possibilities and let them marinate. I don't recall that Xenoposeidon ever had any other provisional name, but Matt Wedel and I for some time referred to the animal now known as Brontomerus by the name "Anomalocedrus", being an anomalous sauropod (because of its enormous preacetabular blade) in the Cedar Mountain Formation. Neither of us liked that name, and it served only as a placeholder until we could come up with something better. When we were working in the OMNH collections with Randy Irmis and Sarah Werning in 2007, we batted ideas around with them, too. As I recall, Randy had recently been involved in the description of Dromomeron, and that put us onto the "-meron" suffix referring to the thighs, From there is was a short step to "Brontomeron" for "thunder-thighs", and from there to Brontomerus, which we checked with someone who knows the ancient languages was acceptable. We're really happy with that name. It perfectly expresses the distinctive morphology of the animal (huge thigh muscles running down from the preacetabular blade), it has an obvious resonance with the much-loved name Brontosaurus (at that time considered invalid), and it's kinda funny.

-- Mike.