Dinosaur naming rate by decade

• Apart from a gap in the 30s-60s, the rate of naming appears exponential.

• These four decades represent the dinosaur “dark ages” in which palaeontology was largely mammal-oriented.

• The dark ages ended in the 70s with the “Dinosaur renaissance” (Ostrom 1969, Bakker 1975)

• The 56 genera named in the 1970s outnumber all those from the preceding four decades

Notes: