Pterosaur renamed in reference to Game of Thrones

[msantix]

Not sure if this has been discussed before on the forum but here is an article talking about a Pterosaur species named Ornithocheirus wiedenrothi that has recently been renamed in it's own genus as Targaryendraco wiedenrothi. The holotype fossils were originally found in Northern Germany back in 1984 but recently it has been concluded that this species belongs to it's own genus and as such the authors chose to name it in honour of the dragons in the book series "Game of Thrones". The Pterosaur itself lived about 130mya.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/26/game-of-thrones-honoured-in-new-classification-of-pterosaur

 

And the scientific paper can be found here

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08912963.2019.1690482?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=ghbi20

 

 

 

[Spoons]

I’m not sure how I feel about naming new taxa after pop-culture media. I feel like it will seem really dated in decades to come. 
 

No paleontologist in the 1950’s names their discovery Buck-Rogers-saurus because they were a fan of Sci-Fi movies. 
 

I don’t know, I might just be a grump.

[Scylla]

19 hours ago, Spoons said:

I’m not sure how I feel about naming new taxa after pop-culture media. I feel like it will seem really dated in decades to come. 
 

No paleontologist in the 1950’s names their discovery Buck-Rogers-saurus because they were a fan of Sci-Fi movies. 
 

I don’t know, I might just be a grump.

It is a sure fire way to get press exposure of your paper 

[Spoons]

5 hours ago, Scylla said:

It is a sure fire way to get press exposure of your paper 

Can’t deny that. If it allows for more funding to be  generated from research maybe it isn’t such a bad thing.

[Tidgy's Dad]

I think it's been going on for a long time. 

Species were named after Hitler during the thirties, a couple after Danté back in the twenties, various US Presidents, a spider after Kipling way back in  1896  and so on. 

(Bagheera kiplingi also takes its generic name from the famous black panther in Kipling's "Jungle Book" 1894.) 

[msantix]

There is a dubious genus of Pterosaur named Aerodactylus that was named after the Pokemon Aerodactyl, so it isn't the only Pterosaur taxon to named after pop culture (although Aerodactylus might no longer be valid).