article: Brontosaurus has made a thundering comeback after being sent into exile by the scientific community. The long-necked dinosaur was one of the largest animals to ever walk the Earth with its legacy captivating children's imaginations the world over. But despite the 'thunder lizard' being deep rooted in popular culture, for more than a century scientists believed the infamous dinosaur never existed. The giant dinosaur and its evocative name - meaning 'thunder lizard' - has enthralled generations of youngsters.But since 1903, experts have believed the creature was originally misnamed. Pictured is a Brontosaurus as researchers see it today -- with a Diplodocus-like head . The researchers looked at 477 anatomical features across 81 individual dinosaurs found in museums throughout Europe and US. Instead of the traditional method of plotting how similar each species is to the others, they instead used a 'specimen-based protocol'. This meant they could analyse each individual animal, despite its species, and allowed them to look at differences within each species, as well as between different species. The main shape of the tree supported what other paleontologists had previously proposed.  But fossils that were originally labelled Brontosaurus appeared different from two Apatosaurus species. Most of the differences were in tiny anatomical features, but one distinctive trait was that Apatosaurus has a wider neck than Brontosaurus. Since 1903, experts have been arguing the creature was originally misnamed. Instead of belonging to the genus, or species 'family' Brontosaurus, they said it should in fact have been classified as 'Apatosaurus'. Now new research has shown that it is, after all, sufficiently different from Apatosaurus to deserve its own genus name. Scientists from the UK and Portugal submitted the evidence for resurrecting Brontosaurus in a study almost 300 pages long published in the open access journal PeerJ. 'The differences we found between Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus were at least as numerous as the ones between other closely related genera, and much more than what you normally find between species,' said Dr Roger Benson, one of the authors from Oxford University. The researchers used statistical techniques to calculate the differences between species and genera of 'diplodocid' dinosaurs - a group that included some of the longest animals that ever walked on the Earth. The researchers looked at 477 anatomical features across 81 individual dinosaurs. Instead of the traditional method of plotting how similar each species is to the others, they instead used a 'specimen-based protocol'. This meant they could analyse each individual animal, despite its species, and allowed them to look at differences within each species, as well as between different species. The main shape of the tree supported what other paleontologists had previously proposed, but fossils that were originally labelled Brontosaurus appeared different from two Apatosaurus species. Most of the differences were tiny anatomical features, but one distinctive trait was that Apatosaurus has a wider neck than Brontosaurus. The researchers looked at 477 anatomical landmarks across 81 individual dinosaurs.The general shape of the tree supported what other paleontologists had previously proposed, but fossils that were originally labelled Brontosaurus appeared different from two Apatosaurus species. Pictured is the revised family tree . The scientists claim that three known species of Brontosaurus exist — Brontosaurus excelsus, which was the first discovered, along with Brontosaurus parvus and Brontosaurus yahnahpin. They also found two members of the group, Diplodocus and Supersaurus, may have reached lengths of up to 112 ft (34 metres). Apatosaurus, also from the group, had an average length of 75 ft (22.8 metres), and weighed around 16.4 tonnes, they said. Colleague Emanuel Tschopp, from Nova de Lisboa University in Portugal, said: 'Our research would not have been possible at this level of detail 15 or more years ago. 'In fact, until very recently, the claim that Brontosaurus was the same as Apatosaurus was completely reasonable, based on the knowledge we had.' In 1877, Marsh’s crew uncovered the bones of a species he dubbed Apatosaurus ajax. Two years later, he found another giant dinosaur and named it Brontosaurus excelsus (pictured) Emanuel Tschopp (left) and Octávio Mateus examine a Galeamopus skull, a genus of diplodocid dinosaurs, as part of the study . The complex history of the the Brontosaurus has its roots in the ‘bone wars’ of nineteenth-century. This was characterised by a race between paleontologists Edward Cope and Othniel Marsh defined the era to find dinosaur fossils. In 1877, Marsh’s crew uncovered the bones of a species he dubbed Apatosaurus ajax. Two years later, he found another giant dinosaur and named it Brontosaurus excelsus. In the early 1900s, after discovering a fossil that was similar to both Brontosaurus and Apatosaurus, other researchers decided that the two dinosaurs were of the same genus. Eventually, palaeontologists agreed that Brontosaurus should be named Apatosaurus. This was under rules that state that the first name given for an animal takes priority. Brontosaurus has a complex history. In the 1870s, palaeontologists led by Othniel Charles Marsh discovered two enormous partial skeletons of long-necked dinosaurs in the US and shipped them to the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven, Connecticut. Marsh described the first of the creatures as Apatosaurus ajax, the 'deceptive lizard', after the Greek hero Ajax. Two years later, he named the second skeleton Brontosaurus excelsus, the 'noble thunder lizard'. Neither skeleton was found with a skull, and Marsh reconstructed one for Brontosaurus excelsus. However, his reconstruction, based on evidence from another long-necked dinosaur, Camarasaurus, was later found to be wrong. Shortly after Marsh's death, scientists from the Field Museum of Chicago found another skeleton similar both to Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus. In fact they were so similar that experts decided it would be correct to treat them as two species from the same genus: Apatosaurus. The final blow to Brontosaurus came in the 1970s when researchers showed that Apatosaurus/Brontosaurus was not closely related to Camarasaurus but Diplodocus, another dinosaur from the same era. Diplodocus had a slender, horse-like skull, rather than the box-like one reconstructed by Marsh and modelled on Camarasaurus. Brontosaurus is one of the most charismatic dinosaurs of all time, inspiring generations of children thanks to its size and evocative name. But researchers long believe Brontosaurus was in fact a misnomer, and it should be correctly referred to as Apatosaurus (artist's impression pictured) Paleontologists Emanuel Tschopp and Octávio Mateus are pictured measuring a sauropod dinosaur femur on the right. On the left is an artist's impression of Brontosaurus . The myth was born that Brontosaurus was actually an Apatosaurus with the wrong head. In science, the distinction between species and genera is without clear rules. But the researchers argue the to resurrect Brontosaurus was not a matter of personal preference . 'We tried to be as objective as possible whenever making a decision which would differentiate between species and genus,' said Professor Tschopp. 'It's the classic example of how science works', said Professor Mateus, a collaborator on the research. 'Especially when hypotheses are based on fragmentary fossils, it is possible for new finds to overthrow years of research.' Pictured is Brontosaurus as researchers imagined it in the late 1800s: aquatic, and with a large, robust skull .
highlights: Since 1903, scientists have been claiming Brontosaurus doesn't exist .
  They said the famous species should be classified as an Apatosaurus .
  New study calculated the differences between families of Diplodocid .
  Brontosaurus had a thinner neck and slightly different bone structure .
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