Jan. 10--The Texas Legislature may vote this year to give long-overdue recognition to one of the state's oldest residents.

How overdue? And how old?

About 110 million years.

Rep. Charlie Geren of Fort Worth submitted a bill this week that would officially designate paluxysaurus as the state dinosaur of Texas.

The bill would also strip that status from pleurocoelus, a sauropod that held the title for the geologically insignificant period of 10 years.

The change was made after Peter Rose, a former graduate student at Southern Methodist University, published a paper in 2007 concluding that bones found near the Paluxy River in Central Texas had been misidentified.

The bones in question were discovered near Glen Rose in 1997.

They were immediately hailed as the remains of pleurocoelus (pronounced pluro-SEE-lus), a 60-foot-long vegetarian weighing up to 45 tons. The first specimens were discovered 100 years ago in Washington, D.C.

When similar bones were found in Texas in the 1990s, they received statewide attention, and the Legislature followed with the official designation.

The bones were placed on prominent display at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, until they were removed a few years ago for renovation.

In the meantime, Rose's research found paluxysaurus (pronounced pah-luxy-SAH-rus) to be a previously unknown species.

He was modest when asked Friday for his reaction to Geren's bill.

"I think it's good to have some attention paid to all the work on the project," said Rose, who is now working on his doctorate at the University of Minnesota.

Geren's staff directed questions to officials at the Fort Worth museum, who pushed to have the designation changed.

"We felt that we just want the designation to be accurate," said Aaron Pan, the museum's science curator.

And, as always, there is Lone Star pride to consider.

"We had to share pleurocoelus with Maryland and Virginia," Pan said, "but paluxysaurus is unique to Texas -- as far as we know."

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