The Part of Dinosaur Anatomy That Owes Its Official Name to ‘The Far Side’
Gary Larson is inarguably one of the greatest cartoonists of all time.
If you don’t think The Far Side is funny, you’re likely insufferable, German or both. His mastery of the craft has landed him honors beyond a stranglehold on the daily comic calendar market, ones that even branch into non-humorous fields. In particular, he once authored a strip in which he was unknowingly officially naming a part of dinosaur anatomy. Larson was simply on the hunt for a funny word, and ended up finding one so perfect that science said, “We’ll take it.”
The dinosaur appendage in question isn’t only a part of an S-tier dinosaur, the Stegosaurus, but it’s maybe the coolest part. I’m talking about the spines on the end of their tail, used in the imagination of 13-year-olds everywhere to whip their foes into submission. I’m thankful for what evolution has done for the human race, but at the same time, I’m sad that it’s not still cooking up biological morning stars and attaching them to living bodies.
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The name for this spiky bit, the one that’s used even in conversations between bona fide dino scientists, is the “thagomizer.”
The “mizer” suffix feels a little off, but otherwise, it doesn’t sound outlandishly unscientific, which is part of what makes it so perfect. It was labeled as such in a Far Side cartoon about cavemen. Explaining a Far Side cartoon is very much killing, if not fully eviscerating, the frog, so I’ll simply embed it below.
FarWorks/Gary Larson
There you have it. The name for the Stegosaurus’ spiny tail is forever a tribute to not only Gary Larson and The Far Side, but to the fictional and seemingly fatally punctured Thag Simmons.
