On May 27, 1982, The Far Side cartoonist Gary Larson published what would become one of the most famous comic strips ever. The image features a classroom full of cavemen being taught by a caveman instructor, and the instructor points at an image of a Stegosaurus tail, specifically the spiky thing at the bottom of the tail. Larson's caption reads, “Now, this end is called the thagomizer … after the late Thag Simmons.”

On the surface, this might not seem like such a big deal. It's just one more of Larson’s many silly comic strips featuring cavemen. But this one ended up taking on a life of its own.

At the time this comic was published, that spiky apparatus at the end of a Stegosaurus’ tail actually had no name at all. So scientists began to jokingly use the word “thagomizer” to describe it. Eventually, the usage became so common that it came to be scientifically recognized and used by such distinguished institutions as the Smithsonian, confirming that one little Far Side joke made scientific dinosaur history.

But while that comic may be Larson’s most famous and historically significant dinosaur comic strip, it was far from his only one. Larson regularly drew dinosaurs in his cartoons, oftentimes doing normal human things or being completely unaware of their impending extinction. The Far Side ran from 1980 until 1995 and Larson created over 4,000 strips during that time. Dozens of them featured dinosaurs. And while only one made dinosaur history, there have been lots of unforgettable ones for Far Side fans.

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