CLAIM: The word “dinosaur” was coined before the first dinosaur fossils were discovered, which proves that the prehistoric reptiles never existed.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Humans have been finding dinosaur fossils for thousands of years, although experts widely credit an English surgeon and his wife for recognizing their significance after the couple’s 1822 discovery of dinosaur teeth in a forest south of London. An English anatomist and paleontologist coined the word “dinosauria,” the scientific name for dinosaurs meaning “terrible lizard,” in 1842.
THE FACTS: Millions of years after the dinosaurs’ extinction, social media users have dug up an old meme to deny the ancient beasts ever actually roamed the Earth.
“Sir Richard Owen, who created the term dinosaur, wanted to prove evolution to be true,” reads an image shared on Instagram. “He knew that many in the scientific community embraced the same goal. He was broke, and desperate to succeed. After his invention of the ‘dinosaur’ in 1842, amazingly, the first dinosaur discovery happened in 1858.”
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In the top-left corner of the image, the word “dinohoax” appears below a picture of a Tyrannosaurus rex.
It’s unclear where the meme originated, but a Google search for “dinohoax” shows it has been circulating online since at least 2019.
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