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
Pretty much all the dinosaur names we know are genus names, which are generally derived from Latin. The ending “-saurus” means “lizard“ since we named a lot of dinosaurs before we realized many of them were more like birds than lizards.
For instance “Tyrannosaurus” translates as “tyrant lizard” and “Stegosaurus” means “roof lizard” under the misconception that the plates lay flat like shingles.
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