Brontosaurus Recognized as its Own Dinosaur for First Time in More than a Century

After more than a century as a defunct name, "Brontosaurus excelsus" will once again refer to its own dinosaur.

According to BBC News, authors of a study published in the journal PeerJ detailed enough Brontosaurus specimens to set it apart as its own dinosaur. The last time Brontosaurus had that kind of distinction was 1903.

"Our research would not have been possible at this level of detail 15 or more years ago," study lead author Emanuel Tschopp, of Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Portugal, said in a press release. "In fact, until very recently, the claim that Brontosaurus was the same as Apatosaurus was completely reasonable, based on the knowledge we had.

"We tried to be as objective as possible whenever making a decision which would differentiate between species and genus."

In 1903, the scientific community collectively accepted Brontosaurus was actually just part of the Apatosaurus ajax family. Othniel Charles Marsh discovered them both in the late 1800s, BBC News reported, but he named Apatosaurus first, so that was the name that eventually became universally accepted for both dinosaurs.

"The differences we found between Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus were at least as numerous as the ones between other closely related genera, and much more than what you normally find between species," study co-author Roger Benson, of the University of Oxford, told BBC News.

Through no fault other than limited technology and instruments, Marsh incorrectly reconstructed one of the dinosaurs' skeletons, which lead researchers after him to lump Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus together.

"This paper is the most comprehensive study produced to date on the evolution of Diplodocus and its closest relatives and sets out some really interesting new ideas on how these animals are related, and how they should be classified," Paul Barrett, of London's Natural History Museum, told BBC News. "The author finds a number of ways in which the original specimens of Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus can be separated from each other and uses these to resurrect Brontosaurus as a separate entity.

"The conclusions seem entirely reasonable to me, as they are well argued and well supported, and it will be interesting to see how quickly these suggestions are adopted by the community."