This 124 million year-old fish-eating dinosaur, found in 1983 by Bill Walker, was named Baryonyx walkeri in recognition of its large, curved claw. Watching slides presented by Adrian Doyle, of the Natural History Museum, I noticed that the striations visible on its bones appeared to encode a message:
“Whoever said a rose by other names would smell as sweet
Had not been nominated for the strangeness of his feet.
I know you palaeontologists are bound by taxonomics,
But ‘heavy claw’ is hurtful and unfair. Yours, Baryonyx.”
