• @[email protected]
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    10311 months ago

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

    • @[email protected]
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      2311 months 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”?

    • Denvil
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      611 months ago

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

      • @Guest_User
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        5211 months ago

        I think they just said there isn’t an official term

        • Denvil
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          2111 months ago

          Oh I’m an absolute buffoon, I thought he said THAT isn’t the official term

        • @[email protected]
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          111 months ago

          Pretty much. Thagomizer is used in literature, but not always. I would say it is officially recognized, but semi-officially used

      • @[email protected]
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        111 months 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