Western University of Health Sciences

Matt Wedel

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Here's something I'm going to be yapping about in my keynote talk, "The
sauropod heresies: evolutionary ratchets, the taphonomic event horizon,
and all the evidence we cannot see", at the 2024 Tate Geological
Museum's Annual Summer Conference
([link](https://www.caspercollege.edu/tate-geological-museum/events/conference/)):
how the fossil record of sauropods is probably wildly at variance with
standing populations in life, at least in terms of sizes and maturity of
the individuals that got fossilized.

I'd write more on this, but I'm going to be giving at least part of a
talk about it in less than two weeks, so I'm going to play against type
and keep this real short.

(Also, I know this says it was published on Wednesday, but it's still
Tuesday here in SoCal, so I'm sticking to my alliterative guns on the
post title.)

 

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[doi:10.59350/yyh2e-87b23](https://doi.org/10.59350/yyh2e-87b23)


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Tate Teaser Tuesday – Taphonomy of the Titans!

Eoneophron, Parapropalaehoplophorus, Ia io, and friends The other day Mike wrote to me about the new Hell Creek oviraptorosaur Eoneophron (Atkins-Weltman et al. 2024), commenting that he liked the ‘eoneo’ — old new — part of the name. That sent me down a little etymological rabbit hole.

## *Eoneophron*, *Parapropalaehoplophorus*, *Ia io*, and friends

The other day Mike wrote to me about the new Hell Creek oviraptorosaur
*Eoneophron* (Atkins-Weltman et al. 2024), commenting that he liked the
'eoneo' --- old new --- part of the name. That sent me down a little
etymological rabbit hole. 

*Eoneophron* is 'Eo' for 'dawn' and *Neophron*, the genus name of the
Egyptian vulture. The vulture was in turn named for the mythological
figure Neophron, whose name means 'new in mind' (some sources would
idiomatically translate that as 'foolish in mind'). So *Eoneophron* does
indeed mean 'old new mind' or 'dawn new mind', by way of an extant
dinosaur and a Greek myth --- a chain whose every link I find
satisfying.

I replied:

> You know about the glyptodonts:  
> -- *Hoplophorus* (Lund 1837) "armor bearer"  
> -- *Palaehoplophorus* (Ameghino 1883) "ancient armor bearer"  
> -- *Propalaehoplophorus* (Ameghino 1887) "ancestral ancient armor
> bearer"  
> -- *Parapropalaeohoplophorus* (Croft et al. 2007) "beside the
> ancestral ancient armor bearer"

I've always thought that was a pretty cool progression. 

Also, *Parapropalaehoplophorus septentrionalis* is tied with
*Roberthoffstetteria nationalgeographica* as the longest binomials (38
letters apiece) of any vertebrates. Both are fossil mammals. But they're
both beaten by many others, including:

- *Parastratiosphecomyia stratiosphecomyioides*, a Southeast Asian
  soldier fly, at 42 letters, the longest binomial of any animal;
- *Myxococcus
  llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogochensis*, a
  soil bacterium, at 73 letters.

There are many more long binomials listed and discussed in [this
Wikipedia
article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long_species_names) (this
[related article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_word_in_English)
is also interesting). Somewhat irritatingly, it only considers the
binomials as a whole, and I haven't yet (i.e., in about five minutes of
poking around) found a list of longest genus names specifically.

Famously, the longest genus name (and longest binomial) of any dinosaur
is *Micropachycephalosaurus hongtuyanensis* (23 and 37 letters,
respectively), and the shortest is *Yi qi* (2 and 4). *Yi qi* is tied
with *Ia io*, the great evening bat, for the shortest genus name and
shortest binomial of anything, period. More short binomials
[here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_short_species_names).

*Parapropalaehoplophorus* and *Micropachycephalosaurus*, both 23
letters, are 2 letters longer than *Parastratiosphecomyia*, and I think
they're the longest genus names of any animal, and possibly the longest
valid genus names, period. All the longer binomials seem to either have
shorter genus names and longer species names, or to be invalid.

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There are many like it but this one is mine.
:::

## Brown's *Composition of Scientific Words*

There are things I haven't blogged about because they are so far down in
my intellectual foundation that I take them for granted. Brown's
*Composition of Scientific Words* is one of those things.

Brown's is a sort of parallel English-Greek-Latin dictionary, with a
decent number of common English words and a long list of Greek and Latin
root words, prefixes, and suffixes, all presented in a single
alphabetical list. So if you want to translate a Greek- or Latin-based
technical term, or you think of a cool English etymology for a
scientific name and want to see how to build it in Greek or Latin, you
just go look up the words or word pieces that you want. Fittingly, the
book was assembled by a paleo person, the paleobotanist [Roland Wilbur
Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_W._Brown) (1893-1961).

Rich Cifelli introduced me to the book. Occasionally he'd invite me into
his office, pitch me a copy of Brown's, and we'd roam through it, trying
to think of cool names for the fossil mammals and other critters he and
the OMNH crew were getting out of Utah, Montana, and Oklahoma. I know
that *Janumys*, named for the two-faced Roman god of beginnings (Eaton
and Cifelli 2001), was born from our roamings through Brown's. When we
realized that OMNH 53062 was going to be the holotype of something new,
I used Brown's to come up with a list of 15 or 20 potential genus names
before hitting on *Sauroposeidon*. As luck would have it,
*Sauroposeidon* was not born from Brown's, but from my then-recent
reading of Mary Renault's *The King Must Die*, about Theseus and his
link to Poseidon, god of earthquakes, plus my exposure to
*Saurophaganax*, which I've always thought was a [badass name for a
badass
critter](https://svpow.com/2013/04/19/friday-phalanges-megaraptor-vs-saurophaganax/).
Anyway, all those unused names are still sitting in my very first
research notebook, hoarded against the day that I might need one of
them. Maybe I'll blog about them someday.

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Random spread. Okay, not random: the Greek 'meron' for 'thigh' is one of
the components of
[*Brontomerus*](https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-wedel-and-cifelli-2011-on-brontomerus/).
:::

Brown's seems to have been most recently republished in 2000, by
Smithsonian Books, and you can get new paperback copies for about \$40,
or used ones for half that. Older hardbook copies sometimes turn up in
used bookstores, online and off. Mine is a used 1978 hardback, procured
for next to nothing back in grad school, and it's one of my favorite
books, period. Anyone who is interested in scientific terms --- or who
is forced to interact with them whether they're interested or not
\*cough\* med students \*cough\* --- should have a copy.

## Tate 2024

The [Tate Geological
Museum's](https://www.caspercollege.edu/tate-geological-museum/) Annual
Summer Conference this year is June 7-9, and the theme is "The Jurassic:
Death, Diversity, and Dinosaurs". There's an impressive speaker list,
from Morrison veterans to early-career folks bringing new data and new
perspectives --- see the roster
[here](https://www.caspercollege.edu/tate-geological-museum/events/conference/).
With such a solid slate of researchers coming to talk, I'm particularly
honored to have been invited as the keynote speaker, and I'll be
bringing some new ideas that I haven't previously yapped about. Come out
to Casper, Wyoming, and join the fun if you are able.

## References

- [Atkins-Weltman KL, Simon DJ, Woodward HN, Funston GF, Snively
  E (2024) A new oviraptorosaur (Dinosauria: Theropoda) from the
  end-Maastrichtian Hell Creek Formation of North America. PLoS ONE
  19(1): e0294901.
  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294901](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0294901)
- [Croft, Darin A.; Flynn, John J.; Wyss, André R. (2007). A new basal
  glyptodontid and other Xenarthra of the early Miocene Chucal Fauna,
  Northern Chile. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology
  27(4):781--797.](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1671/0272-4634%282007%2927%5B781%3AANBGAO%5D2.0.CO%3B2)
- [Eaton JG and Cifelli RL (2001) Multituberculate mammals from near the
  Early-Late Cretaceous boundary, Cedar Mountain Formation, Utah. Acta
  Palaeontologica Polonica
  46(4):453-518.](https://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app46/app46-453.pdf)

 

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[doi:10.59350/j5jfg-n3k62](https://doi.org/10.59350/j5jfg-n3k62)


None

Eoneophron
 
 ,
 
 Parapropalaehoplophorus
 
 ,
 
 Ia io
 
 , and friends

The other day Mike wrote to me about the new Hell Creek oviraptorosaur

 Eoneophron

(Atkins-Weltman et al. 2024), commenting that he liked the ‘eoneo’ — old new — part of the name. That sent me down a little etymological rabbit hole.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

Tate Teaser Tuesday – Taphonomy of the Titans!

Grab-bag post: Parapropalaehoplophorus, a favorite book, Tate 2024