Re: First Pluto is not a planet, and now . . . .

On 03/08/2010, at 8:24 PM, Ronn! Blankenship wrote:

> Triceratops 'never really existed but was just a young version of another dinosaur'
> 
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1299666/Triceratops-really-existed.html

Or more precisely, it's been discovered that _Torosaurus_ has been discovered to be mature _Triceratops_. And in this case, I believe _Triceratops_ has precedence so _Torosaurus_ is folded in.

Stupid headlines and stupid commenters and stupid reporting and fascist owners are why I won't touch the Daily Mail...

And this isn't news at all, btw - http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=are-torosaurus-and-triceratops-one-2009-09-28 is 10 months old.

But thanks, it's a great example of science at work. It's also becoming common - lots of what were thought to be different species are becoming merged as the numbers of specimens increases. What we're learning is that some dinosaurs had some pretty impressive phenotypic plasticity through their lifetimes.

C.