Mistaken Identity: Texas State Dinosaur Needs Name Change

The sauropod Paluxysaurus jonesi probably looked similar to Pleurocoelus, though scientists aren't sure what the newly named dinosaur's head would've looked like as much of the skull fossils have yet to be found.

(Image credit: Karen Carr, taken from "Lone Star Dinosaurs," by Louis Jacobs of SMU.)

Not every state in the nation has a state dinosaur, but Texas does. Now, however, the extinct creature could get a new official name.

It makes sense that the state of everything giant would celebrate a behemoth paleo-beast. In 1997, the legislature named Pleurocoelus the Texas state dinosaur. The sauropod (member of a group of plant eaters with long necks and tails) apparently plodded on saucer-like hind feet and weighed 40,000 to 90,000 pounds (18,000 to 40,000 kg), with a body length of up to 60 feet (18 meters).

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Jeanna Bryner is managing editor of Scientific American. Previously she was editor in chief of Live Science and, prior to that, an editor at Scholastic's Science World magazine. Bryner has an English degree from Salisbury University, a master's degree in biogeochemistry and environmental sciences from the University of Maryland and a graduate science journalism degree from New York University. She has worked as a biologist in Florida, where she monitored wetlands and did field surveys for endangered species, including the gorgeous Florida Scrub Jay. She also received an ocean sciences journalism fellowship from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She is a firm believer that science is for everyone and that just about everything can be viewed through the lens of science.