You Should't Know Brontosaurus
So in the 1870s and 80s two palentologists, Edward Cope and Othneil Marsh basically had the most famous scientific rivalry of all time as they tried to be the guy who named the most dinosaur genera. In their childish hatred, they hired spies and would destroy quarries once they were done with them so the other couldn't get the scraps, would make a great musical. Anyway, They discovered a lot of famous North American dinosaurs, but also would name new genera based on the tiniest differences, which made a mess that future paleontologists had to fix, like the case of apatosaurus and brontosaurus. You really shouldn't know the name brontosaurus, the dinosaur was found to just be an apatosaurus in 1903 by the guy who described brachiosaurus. Despite this the American Museum of Natural History in New York unveiled the first ever skeletal mount of a long-neck dinosaurs, an Apatosaurus, which was incorrectly labeled as Brontosaurus excelsus, which thus meant the public's introduction to long-necked dinosaurs was incorrectly named and so guess what genus the kids learned? [1] I mean today, Technically brontosaurus might be back, as several species of apatosaurus seem to be different enough.
1 Norell, M.A., Gaffney, E.S., & Dingus, L. (1995). Discovering Dinosaurs in the American Museum of Natural History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Images Used
The Bosses of the Senate, a cartoon by Joseph Keppler. First published in Puck 1889.
Cope, Edward Drinker (1840-1897) by Frederick Gutekunst
"Marsh, Prof. O.C. of Conn.". ~1865 and 1880 by Brady Handy
American paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh (center, back row) and assistants ready for digging; from an 1872 expedition, part of the "Bone Wars" 1872 Unknown
Watercolor sketch by geologist Arthur Lakes of expedition members E. Kennedy and Bill Reed with dinosaur bones at Como Bluff, Wyoming. 1880s by Arthur Lakes
Illustration of Stegosaurus ungulatus 1896 by Othniel Charles Marsh
Leaping Laelaps - Two Laelaps/Dryptosaurus fighting. 1897, Charles Knight
Dryptosaurus (formerly Lealaps) confronting Elasmosaurus orientalis, with Mosasaurus and Osteopygis behind. Hadrosaurus forages in background, and Thoracosaurus crawls up on the banks. Note that the head of Elasmosaurus was erroneously placed by Cope on the "short end" now known to be the tail. 1869 Edward Drinker Cope
Illustration of Brontosaurus in the water, and Diplodocus on land. 1897, Charles Knight
Animated film Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) by American animator and cartoonist Winsor McCay.
Mounted skeleton of Brontosaurus excelsus. William Diller Matthew, 1915
Illustration of a Brontosaurus skeleton by Othniel Charles Marsh, 1896
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