• LouisGarbuor@sh.itjust.works
    3·
    1 year ago

    Paleontology nerd here. There isn’t an official term for the tail spikes, but thagomizer is pretty much an unoffcial official term.

    • Denvil@lemmy.one
      1·
      1 year ago

      Well, whats the official term? If its just tail spikes I will be very disappointed

      • LouisGarbuor@sh.itjust.works
        1·
        1 year ago

        I just got the notification for this, sorry. There isn’t a real official term other than tail spikes, but iirc thagomizer has been used in literature, such as this paper describing a new specimen of a stegosaur from Portugal and its impacts on the taxonomy of stegosaurs

    • Perfide@reddthat.com
      1·
      1 year ago

      I mean… if you don’t have an official term for it, but basically everyone in your field calls it a thagomizer, does that not make thagomizer the official term? If not, what makes a term “official”?