For over 100 years scientists thought that Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus were the same dinosaur as their bones look very similar © Daniel Eskridge/Shutterstock
The NHM in London has an article about the reinstatement of Brontosaurus as a valid species name. Both animals we discovered in the American west in the 1970, during a period of time referred to as the "Bone Wars" or the "Great Dinosaur Rush". Apatosaurus ajax was named by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1877 from bones found in Colorado. He named Brontosaurus excelsus a few years later from bones discovered in Wyoming. Both we found in rocks dated to the Jurassic Period, about 156 to 145 million years ago.
Brontosaurus is one of the world's most beloved dinosaurs, unusual, perhaps, for a reptile whose validity was doubted for more than 100 years.
Brontosaurus was a large sauropod, a group of typically large dinosaurs with long necks and long tails. It lived during the Late Jurassic Period, from about 156 to 145 million years ago.
The first recorded evidence of Brontosaurus was discovered in the 1870s in the USA. But by the early 1900s, scientists had started to question whether the fossils used to name Brontosaurus actually came from another dinosaur, the remarkably similar Apatosaurus.
Due to the rules of scientific naming - the first name published gets priority - Brontosaurus was relegated to scientific history and the fossils reassigned to Apatosaurus. That was until a study in 2015 unexpectedly found evidence that Brontosaurus was distinct from Apatosaurus all along, signalling the reinstated status of this iconic dinosaur.
