Fixing Massospondylus
If you have an interest in dinosaurs you will have heard of Massospondylus. It appears in many popular dinosaur books, is regarded as one of the commonest dinosaurs in southern Africa, and has numerous nearly complete skeletons and skulls attributed to it. There are even fossil eggs with complete articulated embryonic skeletons inside that are thought to belong to this species. But what of the type specimen; the official name bearer of the species?
What is a type specimen?
When other specimens are referred to Massospondylus, specifically Massospondylus carinatus, we are proposing the hypothesis that the referred specimen belongs to the same species (whatever that is*) as the type specimen. As so often transpires, the name Massospondylus carinatus was coined early in the history of dinosaur studies, on material that, nowadays, we probably wouldn’t even bother to collect.
What is the problem with Massopsondylus?
Indeed the type specimens of Massospondylus carinatus are, or more correctly were, a paltry pile of damaged vertebrae that were collected off the surface of an outcrop on the Farm Beauchef Abbey, near the town of Harrismith in what is now the Free State Province of South Africa.
Perhaps the best piece from the type series of Massospondylus carinatus
A total collection of 56 postcranial bones from this site were donated to the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. These were described by the famous anatomist, and creator of the name ‘dinosaur’, Sir Richard Owen in 1854. Owen selected five vertebrae from this collection as positively belonging to his new species Massospondylus carinatus. These five vertebrae then became the type specimens (when there is more than a single specimen we call them syntypes) of the species.
Now this where a major problem arises. These vertebrae (we now know them to be neck vertebrae although Owen mistakenly took them for tail vertebrae) are no different from the neck vertebrae of a host of early sauropodomorph dinosaurs such as Adeopapposaurus, Coloradisaurus and Lufengosaurus. Of course tiny differences might be able to be picked out if one looked hard enough but these differences are likely to be subsumed by larger the range of variation seen between individuals of the same species. Furthermore there is more than one species lurking amongst the Massospondylus-like sauropodomorphs of the Early Jurassic of southern Africa. Massospondylus kaalae is one these, and there may well be others. Deciding which of these is represented by the types is impossible.
So what to do? There are three courses of action: 1. Resurrect one of the old presumed synonyms of Massospondylus carinatus as a replacement name. There are certainly plenty of these but each and every one of them is based on material that is almost as inadequate as the original syntypes. 2. Invent a brand new name and apply it to one of the more complete specimens now known. 3. Designate a neotype: That is, take the name Massospondylus carinatus, decouple t from the syntype series and reattach it to one of the more complete specimens. The latter of the three options has the great advantage of causing absolutely no taxonomic disruptions that would ensue if a new and unfamiliar name were to be applied to this well-known taxon.
Usually option three requires a petition to the ICZN, which is gazetted in their bulletin, subjected to public commentary, either for or against, and eventually voted on by the ICZN before final ratification or dismissal. This is a long, slow process but nevertheless the route that Paul Barrett and I favoured. So we set about preparing a formal application to the ICZN to designate a neotype for Massospondylus. Much to my surprise the application was turned down, not because the ICZN didn’t think we had sufficient grounds to justify the designation of a neotype but because a formal petition wasn’t required in this case. You see, in a twist of fate the original syntypes were destroyed during a German bombing raid over London during World War II. Nevertheless they were survived by a series of illustrations and plaster casts.
Some more of the Beauchef Abbey collection preserved as these plaster casts held in the South African Museum, Capetown.
I had thought these were sufficient to act as types, after all the types of Spinosaurus aegytiacus are now reduced to illustrations, thanks to an allied bombing raid in the same war. However they are not, and a neotype can be designated without petition to the ICZN. This is may be the only case where specimen destruction via bombing has actually helped the science a little bit.
So finally our designation of a neotype has been published in Palaeontologia africana. The specimen we selected is a beaut – BP/1/4934, or ‘Big Momma’ as she is affectionately known. So Massospondylus has been saved, it is no longer in danger of being thrown away as yet another nomen dubium and will forever be one of the best known dinosaurs.
The skull of 'Big Momma', now the type specimen of Massospondylus carinatus
The whole skeleton, or at least as much of it as was preserved
Reference
Yates, A. M. and Barrett, P. M. 2011 (for 2010). Massospondylus carinatus Owen 1854 (Dinosauria, Sauropodomorpha): proposed conservation of usage by designation of a neotype. Palaeontologia africana 45: 7-10.
*Species concepts in palaeontology are a whole ‘nother can of worms I’m not going to say too much about. Just that I personally prefer concepts based on the biological species concept, that is species are populations linked by interbreeding. So yes asexual organisms would not consist of species, just clades and that to recognise species in extinct populations we would have to use what little proxies for interbreeding as we can find.
Leave a Reply
Adam Yates
Dracovenator 
Good stuff, Adam, it’s nice to see these important old species getting sorted out. (We are still waiting for the verdict on the Cetiosaurus petition, although I believe it is due soon.)
BTW., when looking at the mounted cast of Massospondylus in the the Natural History Musuem’s dinosaur gallery as far back as 2005, I’ve sometimes been almost certain I could make out pneumatic fossae in the cervicals. Unfortunately, that hall is horribly lit, and the only way to look at the specimen in from a walkway four or five meters away, so I’ve never been able to fully convince myself. (The least bad photo I have of these cervicals is at http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/tmp/dscn3746.jpg ).
Have you even seen the actual specimen than this cast was taken from? (Sorry I don’t have a specimen number). Have you been able to find such fossae in the actual fossils?
Good question. I’ve always been a bit puzzled by the origins of the skeleton in the NHM. I had at one stage thought it might be made from a set of casts from the SAM specimen that used to be on display in Capetown (the one that is standing bolt-upright in a photograph in Dave Norman’s old popular encyclopaedia). This specimen is the ‘Blikana Massospondylus’ described by Haughton in 1924. However that specimen doesn’t have a neck and the CT mount used plaster models. The neck of the NHM mount looks too good to be simply based on models so I wonder if they got casts of a neck from somewhere else? In anycase I’ve seen many Massospondylus necks and they don’t show anything more that vague, poorly defined shallow fossae on each side of the centrum that are just like those from any number of amniotes.
Very interesting. Has the postcrania of the neotype been described anywhere?
And now that I know the destroyed holotype rule, it will be easy to resolve the question of synonymy between Bahariasaurus and Deltadromeus- simply make the latter the neotype of the former. 😉
Not so fast Mickey! I still think you have to demonstrate that a neotype is required, Although destroyed the type of Bahariasaurus may have been perfectly diagnosable (unlike the syntypes of Massospondylus). I’m also not sure how acceptable it is to ‘retro-synonymise’ someone else’s taxon like that, otherwise all you need to do to erase the taxon of someone you wish to slight is to find some old taxon with a missing type and slap its name onto your target’s type specimen.There is probably some rule stating that the neotype must never have been considered a member of a different taxon.
I know you were being tongue in cheek but I point this out to explore a grey area of nomenclature where I’m genuinely confused.
Of course I was kidding, though to my surprise Article 72.6 actually explicitly states “Specimens that are already name-bearing types. The fact that a specimen is already the name-bearing type, or part of the name-bearing type, of one nominal species-group taxon does not prevent its being the name-bearing type, or part of the name-bearing type, of another.”
As for the necessary demonstration that a neotype is required, the ICZN is predictably vague. It can’t be a taxon “whose identity there is no doubt and which is not involved in any complex zoological problem at the time at which it was designated.”
Oh, the postcranium. An extremely loving and fully detailed description was almost completed by a student of mine, who then inexplicably lost interest in palaeontology and just disappeared taking all of his work with him.
Robert Reisz and colleagues are now preparing a description in conjuction with his Massospondylus growth-trajectory work.
WTF. My stomach is twisting. Is it impossible to contact that guy? Has he killed himself? Did he get a religious brainwashing or something?
…Returning to nomenclature, you did know that the ICZN is freely accessible in its entirety here, didn’t you? (It used to be at iczn.org, the site of the Commission, which now links to the NHM site.) I recommend reading it. There are lots of surprises in there. (For instance, I think I’ve found a contradiction between two articles.)
One aspect of the paper that is significant, also something that Barrett has alluded to previously (2004, 2009), is that the basis for referrals and comparisons to Massospondylus (by fixing ‘workable’ type material) needed to be sorted out first before that work can actually proceed properly. Hopefully this leads to more progressive work into sorting out upper Elliot Fm & Clarens Fm sauropodormorphs, and their diversity. Great stuff guys.
Il nostro Studio di Design ha 10 anni di esperienza nel sviluppo di siti internet e di prodotti di poligrafica. Le proposti che proponiamo sono orientate alla massimizzazione della conversione e all’aumento delle vendite. La nostra funzione non e solo la sviluppo e il design: ogni nostro lavoro porta con se le precise idee che vanno trasmesse dal venditore all’acquirente. A seconda degli obbiettivi stabiliti dal cliente cambiano anche le nostre soluzioni.
In questo momento vi suggeriamo di familiarizzare con uno dei molti nostri servizi – e molto probabile che sara molto utile per voi: https://vetlucci.it/it/services-it/posters-it
Il Studio di Design Paolo Vetlucci sara lieto di offrirvi i propri servizi in questo settore, promesse un elevato livello di professionalita nell’esecuzione del vostro ordine.
Noi non chiediamo mai il pagamento anticipato per il nostro lavoro perche siamo sicuri che i risultati del nostro lavoro vi lasceranno assolutamente soddisfatti!
Siamo certi che la nostro collaborazione sara estremamente efficiente. Ci vediamo presto!