Researchers claim a third of dinosaurs might never have existed

[sauroid]

A new ten-year study by US paleontologists suggests that up to a third of dinosaur fossils may have been incorrectly identified as new species, when they are actually juveniles of species in which there was a dramatic change as they developed.

http://phys.org/news/2009-10-dinosaurs.html#nRlv

[CityRaptor]

Uh, have you looked at the date? That is from 2009.

Of course it would be interesting to see which Dinosaurs were actually different species despite having identical skeletons, with the sof parts making the difference, like in case of lions and tigers.

[Kovu]

Wow! Super interesting!
I have always thought dinosaur genera and species were far too split. If they were extant animals, they would probably be far more lumped.
Just look at modern examples. Genus Crocodylus has 13 species, many of them different morphologically from each other. If future paleontologists discovered 13 different skeletons from all over the globe, there would very likely be multiple genera instead of the one. Genus Gazella is another example.
And even within species, in addition to changes between developmental stages, there's also sexual dimorphism, individual variation, etc. For example, the two Chasmosaurus species. How do we know belli and russelli aren't just differences in male/female morphology. Not that I'm necessarily arguing they are, I'm just using them as an example.
Obviously more research needs to go into this, and a third of all dinosaurs does seem a bit... extreme, but I do agree that dinosaurs are severely split.

[sauroid]

so what if it's from 2009? the topic is still relevant...

[stargatedalek]

Another issue with extinct animals is that we tend to use genus names as their common names (with a select few exceptions), so it's genuinely easier for everyone when animals that probably could just be different species are given different genus. I can't even count how many times I've had to explain that the two Parasaurolophus species aren't gender dimorphism, if they had different genus people wouldn't make that mistake.

[sauroid]

i suppose there's a minority of palaeontologists who are so eager to name newly found fossils as new species

[Halichoeres]

i suppose there's a minority of palaeontologists who are so eager to name newly found fossils as new species

Not so sure it's a minority

Dinosaurs are probably way oversplit both on ontogenetic and sex lines, but it's just so damned hard to demonstrate that two different morphs pertain to the same population based on just bones.