Elmer Riggs

American paleontologist Elmer Riggs in 1903 ascribed the differences between the two genera to growth and deemed Apatosaurus to be a young Brontosaurus. Since Apatosaurus had been described first, that became the species name. The change took some time to become accepted in museums—and much longer in…

…Brontosaurus specimens by American paleontologist Elmer Riggs. He concluded that Marsh’s Apatosaurus specimen was simply a younger version of the same type of sauropod represented by his Brontosaurus specimen and that the two genera should thus be consolidated into one. Apatosaurus was first described in 1877, two years before Brontosaurus,…