It’s in the name
Posted: Friday, November 6, 2009 11:30 pm
Bill and Kris Parsons arrived at the name of their new dinosaur discovery because of the skull’s similarity to a bison head. Bison were called tatanka by the Sioux Indians.
“We’re trying, in some way or anther, to recognize Native American paleontologists,” Bill said.
In some American Indian lore, fossils were referred to as snake people, Bill said.
“Native Americans understood things about dinosaurs,” he said. “It’s important to acknowledge there are parallel paths to wisdom.”
Jack Horner, paleontology curator at the Museum of the Rockies, said it is estimated that a new dinosaur species is named on average about every seven weeks.
