How Are Dinosaurs Named
Dinosaurs are named by the person who discovers the creature, says Mark Norell, a paleontologist who studies fossils at the American Museum of Natural History. The New York museum is home of the world’s largest collection of dinosaur remains. “The first person to describe a new dinosaur or any animal, plant, fungi species gets to name it anything they want,” Norell says. Though dinosaurs—a group of reptiles that once lived on and dominated Earth starting around 245 million years ago—mostly went extinct about 66 million years ago, scientists have learned a lot about these creatures through fossils....