Plants & CreaturesGreek → English
Apatosaurus
/əˌpætəˈsɔːrəs/noun
A long-necked, long-tailed sauropod dinosaur of the late Jurassic of North America.
The Greek roots
ἀπάτη
apátē
deceit, trickery
σαῦρος
saûros
lizard
Literally: “deceptive lizard”
The story of the word
Othniel Marsh named it the deceptive lizard in 1877 because a bone in its tail resembled that of a marine reptile and had misled him. Two years later he named another skeleton Brontosaurus, thunder lizard, and it proved to be the same animal, so the older and duller name took precedence. Palaeontologists have argued since 2015 over whether Brontosaurus deserves reinstating as a genus of its own.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1877
Same family
apatitesauropoddinosaurstegosaurus
In a sentence
The Apatosaurus mount runs the length of the hall and still does not fit comfortably.
He explained to his daughter, with some regret, why the museum label no longer says Brontosaurus.