What evolutional benefit is that?

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[–] 3 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Can we acknowledge the super polite way the second linked article calls something bullshit?

Gregory S. Paul, in his 1988 book Predatory Dinosaurs of the World, also considered Deinonychus antirrhopus a species of Velociraptor, and so rechristened the species Velociraptor antirrhopus.[34] This taxonomic opinion has not been widely followed

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    Idk, I've read some relatively popularly-oriented stuff on dino paleontology and classification, and some of those areas are shockingly shaky, so I don't think this is meant to be some special "diss" at the researcher. E.g. when I was a kid I knew very well what Troodon was, it was shown in all those dino encyclopedias and "documentary" films (Discovery Channel's Dinosaur Planet), noted for having the largest brain-to-body ratio, but it turns out that the whole species was reconstructed based on vague fossil fragments (like many other species, mind you) and tenuous connections between them (i.e. without good reasons to assume they belong to the same animal), and the current consensus is that the species literally did not exist at all. Having your taxonomic reclassification rejected seems pretty negligible compared to erasing a whole damn species...

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