The Brontosaurus is Back! Dinosaur is its Own Genus

For years, researchers believed that the well-known Brontosaurus was misclassified and was instead the Apatosaurus. Now, though, it seems as if the dinosaur is a distinct genus. Scientists have discovered that the Brontosaurus is indeed its own genus.

Brontosaurus is one of the most charismatic dinosaurs of all time. With its long neck, small neck and long tail, it helped inspire generations of children. Yet in 1903, scientists decided that this dinosaurs wasn't a distinct genus and that it was, in fact, the Apatosaurus.

The Brontosaurus was first discovered in the 1870s during a series of new finds of fossil species. Field crews excavated numerous new skeletons of long-necked dinosaurs. A few years later, researchers found a skeleton that was similar to both Apatosaurus ajax and Brontosaurus excelsus. Because of the similarity, the researchers believed that Brontosaurus wasn't a distinct genus at all.

The final blow to Brontosaurus came in the 1970s when researchers found more evidence linking Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus. Now, though, a single study has overthrown this particular idea.

"Our research would not have been possible at this level of detail 15 or more years ago," said Emanuel Tschopp, one of the researchers, in a news release. "In fact, until very recently, the claim that Brontosaurus was the same as Apatosaurus was completely reasonable, based on the knowledge we had."

The researchers found differences between the two that were at least as numerous as the ones between other closely related genera. In addition, the differences were much more than what was normally found between species. This means that Brontosaurus once more lives as its own separate genus.

The findings are published in the journal PeerJ.

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