Although teeth and indeterminate fragments had been discovered prior, in 1892, paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope described the first known T. rex skeleton, which he dubbed “Manospondylus gigas” (Greek for “Giant Thin Vertabrea”). The specimen was originally believed to have belong to that of a ceratopsian, but is currently considered a Nomen oblitum. This was heavily and inaccurately restored with a plaster using Allosaurus as the model, and has since been disassembled. When Barnum Brown and his crew made an expedition to Montana in 1900, they stumbled upon the first partial T.rex skeleton, and then a second one in 1902 that would be properly represented as the neotype specimen. In 1905, Henry Fairfield Osborn named the skeleton “Tyrannosaurus rex”, which is the name that has prevailed since.
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