Brachiosaurus Brains: Like me, did you learn as a kid that some dinosaurs (such as the really big/long Brachiosaurus) had two brains? One in its head, and one in its butt? I was always so amazed by this fact. Sadly - sometime between my childhood and now, they have decided that it isn't true.
From one site: "Paleontologists now think that what they thought was a second brain was just an enlargement in the spinal cord in the hip area."
- Shannon Bauman
Aww, I used to refer to the 'butt brain' when trying to explain things I did 'just because' without rational thought. I still like the term.
- Kevin Fox
http://www.straightdope.com/columns... (featuring a poem from Bert Taylor!)
- Jim Norris
Good ol' Cecil Adams. However, I find fault with his statement of "Actually, it wasn't the brontosaurus that supposedly had two brains, it was the stegosaurus, the one with the spikes running up and down its back." I have a pretty vivid memory of the diagram that showed the butt brain - as kevin so lovingly calls it - and there weren't any spikes on that dinosaur. Perhaps both of them supposedly had it?
- Shannon Bauman
@Jim Funny poem.
- Anne Bouey