History of Study
The first record of Camarasaurus comes from 1877, when a few scattered vertebrae were located in Colorado, by Oramel W. Lucas. The paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope paid for the bones, as part of his long-running and acrimonious competition with Othniel Charles Marsh (known as the Bone Wars) and named them in the same year. Marsh later named some of his sauropod findings Morosaurus grandis but most paleontologists today consider this to be a species of Camarasaurus . Such naming conflicts were common between the two rival dinosaur hunters, the most famous being Brontosaurus/Apatosaurus.
It was not until 1925 that a complete skeleton of Camarasaurus was recovered, by Charles W. Gilmore. However, it was the skeleton from a young Camarasaurus, which is why so many illustrations of the dinosaur from the time show it to be much smaller than it is now known to be.
The Morrison Formation, along the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains, is home to a rich stretch of Late Jurassic rock. A large number of dinosaur species can be found here, including relatives of the Camarasaurus such as Diplodocus, Apatosaurus and Brachiosaurus. However, camarasaurs are the most abundant of all the dinosaurs in the Formation.There have been a number of complete skeletons recovered from Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Present in stratigraphic zones 2-6.
Read more about this topic: Camarasaurus
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history and/or study:
“The second day of July 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“Considered in its entirety, psychoanalysis won’t do. It’s an end product, moreover, like a dinosaur or a zeppelin; no better theory can ever be erected on its ruins, which will remain for ever one of the saddest and strangest of all landmarks in the history of twentieth-century thought.”
—Peter B. Medawar (1915–1987)
“A young man is not a proper hearer of lectures on political science; for he is inexperienced in the actions that occur in life, but its discussions start from these and are about these; and, further, since he tends to follow his passions, his study will be vain and unprofitable, because the end that is aimed at is not knowledge but action. And it makes no difference whether he is young in years or youthful in character.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)