Dinosaurs, it seems, have changed more in the past twenty years than in the previous 200 million. First of all they are not, as you may have heard, extinct. Through a neat act of clerical redefinition, birds, once thought to be descended from dinosaurs, have now become dinosaurs. Then the reptile formerly known as Brontosaurus, or Thundering Lizard, has been renamed Apatosaurus, that is, Deceiving Lizard, a point upon which paleontologists insist with great solemnity, concealing the fact that the change is mostly one of labeling. Everything from the size to the speed and posture of these big chaps has been called into question, and the truculent certitude of yore has yielded to pandemic doubt.
The center of such revisionism is the American Museum of Natural History, which, amid much fanfare, has just reopened its Hall of Dinosaurs after many years of renovation.
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