Who is the Jurassosaurus?





Name: Jurassosaurus
Age: About 170 million years old
Location: Xinjiang Province, northwestern China
How useful was the above information: Mmm..Not very.
Likes: The natural world (especially reptiles and other underdog animals), action movies, videogames, the natural sciences, martial arts.
Dislikes: Politicians, activists, fundamentalists (like there's a difference) and other people who want to enforce strict rules on things, nosy people, stereotypes, snobs.
Favorite game system: Nintendo 64
 Favorite animal: Crocodylians, Chelonians, Squamates, etc.
Favorite TV shows: X-Files, Simpsons, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hercules, Xena, Mad TV, Pinky & the Brain Nightman (believe it or not), Doctor Who, Red Dwarf.
Favorite movies: The Star Wars Trillogy. The Aliens Saga, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Tremors, Men In Black (noticing a pattern here)
Favorite colours: Blue, Green and Black
Career of Choice: Paleontologist studying the evolutionary relationships between the crocodylatarsia and the Deinosauria.
Things that I will accomplish in my lifetime: Have a pet crocodylian, swim with sharks, name a new species or genus of reptile, go to the rainforests of South America or Madagascar.
Things I would like to do: Skydive, go free swimming with a white pointer (Carcharodon carcharius) or Tiger Shark (Galeocerdo cuvier), meet the giant squid (Architeuthis dux), meet a living deinosaur.
Things that I might not wish for, but would find cool to have happen to me nonetheless: Get struck by lightning, Get picked up by a tornado.

The Story of the Handle

A handle by any other name would smell as sweet...


Okay so it's something like that. My point is this. On the internet, like in a truck company, everyone has a handle that conveys who he/she is. Sometimes it's a simple handle like John Doe. This handle just states the person's real name. That's fine and honest, but some of us really like to take advantage of the anonymity that comes with the internet. So we go off and make names that usually convey something about our personalities.

So how, you ask, did I end up with a name like this. Well I assure you it was completely unintentional. At the time I just needed a simple handle that I could use on this message board about deinosaurs and the Jurassic Parktm movies. Since this was a forum about deinosaurs, I figured it would help if I had a name that was deinosaurian and that had something to do with the films. So I perused the deinosaur genera lists until I found a name I could use. By a sheer stroke of luck, I found a deinosaur that had a direct relation to the Spielberg movie. The Jurassosaurus nedegoapeferkimorum

J.nedegoapeferkimorum was a fossil ankylosaur that was discovered in northwestern China in 1980. The bones lay there unprepared for a decade until a generous donation from Steven Spielberg was made. In honour of this donation the last or species name of the animal was dedicated to the cast of Mr. Spielberg's latest film Jurassic Parktm. The name is made up from the first letters of the last names of the actors who played in the movie. Sam Neil, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Sir Richard Attenborough , Robert Peck, Martin Ferrero, Wayne Knight, Ariana Richards, and Joseph Mazzello.

Due to this strange coincedence I used the name and in fact quickly grew accustomed to it. Later as I moved on to other message boards I still found myself using that same name, regardless of how out of place it might have been. Of course there were times where I would change, but through it all the Jurassosaurus name has been my most common.

Later as time went on the ankylosaur's generic name (which was unofficial at the time) was being replaced by the name TIANCHISAURUS in honour of Lake Tianchi (Heavenly Lake) where it was found. The paperwork went through and now the animal is officially TIANCHISAURUS and not JURASSOSAURUS.
Strangely enough the species name also was rearranged. This is strange since the species name is usually the most static of the bunch (or as static as you can get with zoological classification). It went from nedegoapeferkimorum to nedegoapeferkirima. I believe this had a lot to do with the questionable last half of the name which is hard to decipher.

So now the name Jurassosaurus nedegoapeferkimorum has been cast aside for Tianchisaurus nedegoapeferkirima. I can't say that I really mind though. With the Jurassosaurus name freed up and out of use it now feels more unique. I have now thoroughly embraced this handle and it is in fact a second name for me. While I don't go around introducing myself as the Jurassosaurus nedegoapeferkimorum I do consider this my real name on the internet. Handle or no handle.

"And now you know the rest of the story." -Paul Harvey

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