Confusion on Numbers of Dinosaur Species

It has been discussed before that paleontologists are uncertain as to the number of dinosaur species, and this problem has been analyzed again. It did not go well. Remember that they were not there, so they are constrained by various kinds of bones, fossils, and an increasing amount of soft tissues. Several observations are offered that make little sense.

Credit: Pixabay / Marek Jackowski

It would be expected in the wild and woolly days of bone hunters like Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope that they would be excited about a new fossil discovery and then slap a label on it. But as paleontology evolved, it was realized that males, females, juveniles were being categorized as different species.

The idea of juvenile dinosaurs were out-competing each other was run up the flagpole, but not many are saluting it. There are variations between and within individuals. Also, the areas where subjects were found and analyzed are dinosaur graveyards with many specimens quite a distance from each other is noteworthy. Add this to the other details, and we have yet again evidence for the Genesis Flood.

New analyses of fossils is leading scientists to question our understanding of dinosaur species.

We’ve finally figured out why there were no medium-sized dinosaurs (New Scientist). The bluffing headline by Riley Black glosses over the difficulty of figuring out where one dinosaur species ends and another begins. Researchers at the University of New Mexico aren’t so sure. Their new idea—that juvenile dinosaurs outcompeted one another—flies in the face of earlier explanations, such as the idea that juveniles didn’t fossilize well or have not yet been found. Any dinosaur hatched from an egg would have to spend some time as a youngster. Why are so few of them found? It doesn’t make sense.

Read more about this and other reports at the enlightening "Number of Dinosaur Species May Be Overestimated". You may also be interested in "Dinosaurs Had No Evolutionary Past".