Chasmosaurus irvinensis

What's in a Name?

A lot of thought went into finding a meaningful scientific name for this new dinosaur: Chasmosaurus irvinensis.

Scientific names are in Latin and consist of two parts:

1. the name of the genus (capitalized) followed by
2. the species name in lower-case letters.

Two dinosaurs with the same genus name will have a lot in common. Because of their similarities, the dinosaur in this Amazing Story has been placed in the same genus as several other dinosaurs in Nature's collections, Chasmosaurus.

The first part of the scientific name, Chasmosaurus (pronounced 'kaz-mo-sore-us'), can be translated to mean a lizard (-saurus) that has openings ("chasms") in its skull, particularly referring to those in the frill.

The second part, the species name, was chosen after the specimen had been studied in enough detail to establish its unique characteristics and its relationship to other species. The species was given the name irvinensis after the town of Irvine (pop. 350) in southeast Alberta, near where the skeleton was found. The dinosaur was formally "named" with the publication of its description in a scientific publication, The Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences.

Before the species was given its scientific name we asked for your help in a contest to give it a nickname! We chose a nickname from your suggestions: Chasy. It was suggested by Adam Strueby of Regina, Saskatchewan.