Orton Geological Museum

For 225 years, confusion and controversy have surrounded the spelling and/or authorship of Megalonyx, a giant ground sloth from North America. In a review of the earliest scientific publications in paleontology, Loren Babcock shows that Megalonyx was validly named according to the rules of zoological nomenclature by Thomas Jefferson in 1799, even though its type species, M. jeffersonii, was not described until nearly a quarter-century later.

Study available in our journal: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1195.117999

Here is a new article on the giant ground sloth Megalonyx:

Nomenclatural history of Megalonyx Jefferson, 1799 (Mammalia, Xenarthra, Pilosa, Megalonychidae) Both authorship and spelling of the extinct giant sloth genus Megalonyx and its type species, M. jeffersonii (Mammalia, Xenarthra, Pilosa, Megalonychidae), have been inconsistent. The genus-group name has been cited with two different authorships and three dates, and it has been spelled with two dif...