Glenn Goodhart, age 9 Philadelphia, PA

How were the prehistoric animals named?

There is a rhyme about an icthyosaurus who lived when the world was all porous. When he first heard his names he curled up in shame: And died there long ages before us. That cute story cannot be true, Icthyosaurus was named by modern scientists. He perished long before mankind came to live in the world, Whats more, he would have not have been ashamed of the name they gave him after studying his fossil bones. It means fish lizard which is what he was.

Naturally there was no one around to hand out names while the pre¬historic animals were alive. Some waited hundreds of millions of years to be named. Like modern animals  they are classified in tribes clans and families. Icthyosaurus was named from the Greek word for fish plus saurus, the family name of the lizards. His fancy scientific name is the same in French, German and any other language.

Many though not all  of the dinosaurs have names ending with the lizard family name. Brontosaurus means the thunder lizard. Whether he roared like thunder we do not know. But life sized models of the huge fellow look as though he might have. Stegosaurus is the baby tank with triangles of armor plating sticking up along his arched back. His name means the roofed dinosaur. Tyrannosaurus is the toothy  meat eating dinosaur whose name means the tyrant lizard,

Other ancient animals were named for the times in which they lived. Eohippus is the name given to the earliest of horses. Hippus is his family name. Eo is from the Greek word for east and means the dawn. Little Eohippus lived in the Eocene epoch of earth's history  during the dawn of recent, or modern animal life.

Some prehistoric animals were named from the places where their fossils were found. The bones of a very early bird were found in Kansas. He was named hosperorniss meaning the western bird. Moeritherium was a remote  ancestor of the elephant. He was named for an old lake near which his fossil bones were discovered.

Many of the old timers carry clues to their features in their names. The ancient elephant descended into paleomastodon   Old Big Teeth. His children became mastodons Big Teeth. Another early bird is named pterodactyl winged fingers, His bat like wings ended in claws.

The saber toothed tiger has a name we can all understand. He carved up his dinner with his long, curved teeth. Why aren't all the other names in plain, simple English? Scientific names are planned to be understood in all languages. That is why they are usually coined from old Greek or Latin words: Look them up one by one in a big  unabridged dictionary, You will find those long fancy names usually have very simple meanings:

You will also find a scientific name for old saber tooth. His international name is simodon. It is coined from the Greek word for, of all things a carving knife.