Brontosaurus is back

[Brontozaurus]

Rejoice! Brontosaurus is a valid genus once again!

[DinoLord]

Interesting paper; I wonder what the general reaction amongst paleontologists will be. I always did think that A. excelsus looked more different from the other Apatosaurus species than A. ajax and A. louisae.

[tyrantqueen]

Hooray

[sauroid]

hmmm should we expect Brontosaurus models in the near future? so what exactly were the recent Apatosaurus figures skeletal based on?

[Tyto_Theropod]

*Does happy dance* 

[SpittersForEver]

YAY!!!!!!   

[reinier zwanink]

To bad you cant see in the artical where the difference is
It states the neck but without any pic or drawings

Bronto is always been great
But i never mind apato

I would like to see that tree

[Arul]

Ohh so how about the apatosaurus ?

[CityRaptor]

Apatosaurus stays Apatosaurus.  It just "loses" one the four species.

EXCELSUS!

[SpartanSquat]

Brontosaurus rises like a Phoenix from the ashes. @CityRaptor: So Brontosaurus only have one specie? B. excelsus? No more species?

[Takama]

Wow im speechless.   No longer will i have to commission an Eobrontosaurus

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Yeah I'd like to see more visuals showing how this was achieved.

Looking over Hartman's skeletals I can't see much difference between Excelsus and Louisae..Ajax is a different story it though it's not being contested.

A. Excelsus :

A. Louisae

A. Ajax :

[Takama]

What i like to see is a Skeletal of A. Parvus

Back on topic.  Do you think i should wait before i even think of commissioning a Brontosaurus

[reinier zwanink]

Asuming that thouse drawings are very accurate
You can see a difference in the neck but not that much
The article mentioned over 20 sauropode that they compared so it is possible
We can only see 3 here now

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Asuming that thouse drawings are very accurate
You can see a difference in the neck but not that much
The article mentioned over 20 sauropode that they compared so it is possible
We can only see 3 here now

I have every faith in those skeletals being accurate as Scott Hartman does his research. 

Here's a link for the actual paper I think : https://peerj.com/articles/857

[Kayakasaurus]

I don't see much of a difference. I think they're making the same mistake that originally gave us the Brontosaurus; wanting to get something exciting published. Well if this does stand I'm going to have to stop telling my Grandma there is no such thing as a Brontosaurus anymore. Can you imagine a Brontosaurus model from one artist compared to an Apatosaurus from a different artist? Their would be no way to tell which is which.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

It's one reason I chose to make A.Ajax for the Park as you can tell a difference in it more than others.

Some are saying it won't make much difference to the science aspect at all at any rate. I expect more opinions..hopefully educated ones , through out the day.

[Newt]

The paper's open access. You don't have to wonder about the authors' reasoning - go and read it yourself!

They looked at a heck of a lot of morphological characters - far more than you can see in a skeletal drawing. And then they performed phylogenetic analyses which recovered Apatosaurus excelsus and A. amplus as most closely related to each other, and then to a group containing Amphicoelias, Elosaurus, Eobrontosaurus, and possibly A. ajax, than to the remaining Apatosaurus species.

In the end, their ressurected and revised Brontosaurus contains 3 species: B. (formerly Apatosaurus) excelsus,which also includes B. (formerly Apatosaurus) amplus; B. (formerly Elosaurus) parvus; and B. (formerly Eobrontosaurus) yanahpin.

[Dinoguy2]

The differences are mostly characters of the bones that would not really be obvious to a non expert. The biggest difference is the relative size and width of the neck bones. This would not be visible in side view, but see the front view here :

See an interview with the scientists here: http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=3297.new#new

As for a commission, just commission an excelsus. Whether the genus is Brontosaurus or Apatosaurus doesn't matter as long as it's based on the Peabody Museum skeleton, it will always be the same animal no matter how many times its name changes.

I'm sure Hartman skeletals are accurate, the question is, is that the Peabody specimen or something that might be Apatosaurus ajax? Some former Brntosaurus specimens are stil considered Apatosaurus in the new study.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Usually Scott lists which specimen he used for a restoration, I've not been able to find it for the A.Excelsus piece though. He did mention using it for SVP but I'm not sure of the how/what.