The Thagomizer

LouisGarbuor@sh.itjust.works · 2 years

Paleontology nerd here. There isn’t an official term for the tail spikes, but thagomizer is pretty much an unoffcial official term.

Perfide@reddthat.com · 2 years

I mean… if you don’t have an official term for it, but basically everyone in your field calls it a thagomizer, does that not make thagomizer the official term? If not, what makes a term “official”?

Denvil@lemmy.one · 2 years

Well, whats the official term? If its just tail spikes I will be very disappointed

LouisGarbuor@sh.itjust.works · 2 years

I just got the notification for this, sorry. There isn’t a real official term other than tail spikes, but iirc thagomizer has been used in literature, such as this paper describing a new specimen of a stegosaur from Portugal and its impacts on the taxonomy of stegosaurs

Varyk@sh.itjust.works · 2 years

https://www.amusingplanet.com/2020/07/thagomizer-why-stegosaurus-spiky-tail.html?m=1#%3A~%3Atext=But+the+“thagomizer”+itself+is%2Cchances+to+name+new+bones.

For anyone who was also wondering how accurate this is. Pretty accurate.