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Discussion Call to split T. rex into 3 species sparks fierce laughter and memes among paleontologists

Cow Mengde

Cow Mengde

Piranha Plant
This is my summary based on the paper published last night. It doesn't actually sum up the article. I figured I share an article to go with it since the paper is locked behind a paywall.

  • They split up Tyrannosaurus based on whether it's fat or not. That's like calling a fat man and a skinny man 2 different species of humans.
  • The other trait is how many front teeth it had. Tyrannosaurus is notorious for not having a set number of teeth in its skull.
  • What happens if a Tyrannosaurus is neither fat nor skinny? No idea and the paper admits this. Because the American Museum of Natural History has a Tyrannosaurus that's neither robust nor gracile. When you can't tell what species it is despite having a really good skeleton, that's not good.
  • Determining species based on 2 traits is ridiculous. A lot of this observation could be explained by individual variation within the same species. Fat man is one species of human. Skinny man is another species of human. Longer leg man is another species. Shorter leg man is another species, etc.
  • The naming of regina is also improper. The "us" in Tyrannosaurus is masculine, and regina is feminine. You can't have conflicting names according to the scientific naming convention. At least that's what I'm told. So the names can't even stick.
  • Regina is also problematic in that the holotype listed isn't the holotype at all. If regina exists, the holotype has ALREADY BEEN NAMED back in 1995, BY THE SAME LEADER AUTHOR of this paper. Regina would have to be changed to megagracilis because that name was used first.
  • It's not that it's impossible to have multiple Tyrannosaurus species. It's that this paper's method of determining a different species is extremely flawed.
  • The lead author of this paper is the reason Jurassic Park mixed up the names of Velociraptor and Deinonychus. This is not an attack on him. He's done great work. However, his naming conventions for genus and species are very messy.
  • The general consensus is that most paleontologists are not convinced.

TL;DR: A paper suggests there are 3 species of Tyrannosaurus. They are T. rex, T. regina, and T. imperator. The paper doesn't make a strong case for it, however.

www.nationalgeographic.com

Should T. rex be 3 species? New study sparks fierce debate.

If a controversial new study is right, famous fossils such as Sue and Stan aren’t T. rex after all. But leading experts are highly skeptical.
www.nationalgeographic.com www.nationalgeographic.com

Hopefully, the memes we made can better explain the problem.

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I fucking love dinosaur content but I am howling that the person who mixed up the naming conventions for Velociraptor and Deinonychus in Jurassic Park is the same person trying to split up T. Rex into three different subspecies.

And I thought the nanotyrannosaur debate was amusing lol
 
Brofield said:
I fucking love dinosaur content but I am howling that the person who mixed up the naming conventions for Velociraptor and Deinonychus in Jurassic Park is the same person trying to split up T. Rex into three different subspecies.

And I thought the nanotyrannosaur debate was amusing lol
Click to expand...

Oh, it gets weirder. Paul is notorious for lumping animals on a genus level. Tarbosaurus and Daspletosaurus are also lumped into Tyrannosaurus. They're distinguished by their species instead. Following his logic, there are more than 3 species of Tyrannosaurus since he lumps a lot of others into it.
 
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