Monkey, salmon, pelican, turtle, cobra, poodle, alligator, eagle, iguana, geraffe, rhinoceros….all have unique names that don’t follow any major sort of naming system. I realize these are the general names and not the true scientific names, but why are so many dinosaurs all named with saurus at the end?
In: Biology
Dinosaurs don’t really have “common” names. The names you’re thinking of are the genus names (or sometimes genus + species, e.g. *Tyrannosaurus rex*).
*Saurus* appears in so many dinosaur names because it’s Greek for “lizard.” Dinosaurs aren’t lizards but they are reptiles.
There are several modern genera that do have “saurus” in their names, including [*Chlamydosaurus*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frilled_lizard), [*Callisaurus*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra-tailed_lizard), and [*Petrosaurus*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_rock_lizard). To my knowledge, all of these are proper lizards.
There’s also [*Basilosaurus*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilosaurus) which is an ancient whale. It was so named because it was originally mistaken for a marine reptile, but according to the rules of scientific nomenclature the first name used becomes official.
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