Talk:Maraapunisaurus

Fragillimus & fragilissimus

Presently the article states that the specific name is the Latin fragillimus. However, there is no Latin fragillimus. It's a spelling mistake by Cope; the Latin word is fragilissimus. He himself in 1881 used the correction fragillissimus (again spelled wrong), Oliver Perry Hay in 1901 used the correct fragilissimus and Osborn & Mook in 1921 also had the variant fagillisimus. Of course fragillimus is the valid specific name as such names cannot be corrected. But we are not allowed to state a known falsehood as truth. I'm not aware of any source directly discussing this issue.

There are some solutions to this problem:

1. We dodge the issue by stating something like "the specific name intended to express that the fossil was very fragile".
2. We use Hay: "In 1901 Hay corrected the spelling to the Latin fragilissimus but such emendations are not allowed under the ICZN".
3. We explain it all in a footnote.

Or a combination of the above.--MWAK (talk) 07:46, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

The second option is what other articles tend to do off the top of my head, so that could work. You could do all three, using the wording from option one in the text, and having a footnote going over option two. Lusotitan (Talk | Contributions) 19:09, 29 October 2018 (UTC)

I'll start with a combination of the first two.--MWAK (talk) 14:03, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

See also this discussion, Wimpus (talk) 16:30, 30 October 2018 (UTC)

An interesting discussion :o). In any case, if the source states a verifiable falsehood regarding the etymology, we should not simply repeat the mistake as the source is then not reliable.--MWAK (talk) 09:15, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (2012): "Article 32.3. Preservation of correct original spelling. The correct original spelling of a name is to be preserved unaltered, except where it is mandatory to change the suffix or the gender ending under Article 34." "Article 32.5. Spellings that must be corrected (incorrect original spellings) 32.5.1. If there is in the original publication itself, without recourse to any external source of information, clear evidence of an inadvertent error, such as a lapsus calami or a copyist's or printer's error, it must be corrected. Incorrect transliteration or latinization, or use of an inappropriate connecting vowel, are not to be considered inadvertent errors." Carpenter, Kenneth (talk) 18:52, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Cope's Handwriting and A Vertebra that is way too large.

Cope had a tendency to scribble his notes, and in publication his 3's and his 5's were hard to distinguish. The Vertebra He found was reproduced in Canyon City to be around 8 feet tall, when in fact he had written that it was 1500 m. We would use 1500 mm or 1.5 meter. Using an engineers scale on one of the published images, it was only 1478 mm tall. Using the Engineers scale on the images, you can make multiple ratios of lengths to compare with the published lengths. There is an error in the publications. One of his 5's must be changed to a 3, to correct the error. The other correction is that the overall length of the animal must be multiplied by 3/5 X 190 LF = 114 Lf. This would make Cope's Sauropod into a Normal Length Animal, but not one of exceptional length. Or, 1478 / 2400 = 0.615 X 190 = 117 LF. Either way Cope's Vertebra came from a Normal Medium Large Sauropod of the time period. I figured this out because I had the same 3 to 5 scribble problem. Now I print carefully. 98.245.219.152 (talk) 16:44, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

We need a published source that says that, otherwise it is WP:original research. FunkMonk (talk) 17:14, 3 November 2023 (UTC)