If you’re curious about eroded, questionably diagnostic vertebral centra from the Middle Jurassic of England, you have come to the right place! Sorting out taxonomy is dull, difficult, thankless work of the sort that in other fields of human endeavor is usually farmed out to robots. But it’s also foundational stuff that really needs to be done right, which is probably why Adam got it all knocked out on the first day (the Garden of Eden must have had a depauperate fauna).
The paper
- Upchurch, Paul, John Martin, and Michael P. Taylor. 2009. Case 3472: Cetiosaurus Owen, 1841 (Dinosauria, Sauropoda): proposed conservation of usage by designation of Cetiosaurus oxoniensis Phillips, 1871 as the type species. Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 66 (1): 51-55.
Blog Entries
- Sorting out Cetiosaurus nomenclature
- Cetiosaurus nomenclature, redux — comments from Paul Barrett and Pete Galton
- Cetiosaurus oxoniensis is — finally! — the type species of Cetiosaurus
And here’s the ICZN decision itself:
- International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. 2014. OPINION 2331 (Case 3472): Cetiosaurus Owen, 1841 (Dinosauria, Sauropoda): usage conserved by designation of Cetiosaurus oxoniensis Phillips, 1871 as the type species. Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature 71(1):48-50.
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week 