On the "thagomizer" trail

The interesting thing is that instance is in mathematics where every other example I've seen retains Larson's original usage. So how'd the mathematicians get a hold of it? On a hunch, I looked at the paper and spotted this https://t.co/RXz5m6PKfu

— Bill Benzon (@bbenzon) July 24, 2018

I'd say that looks more than a little like the four spikes on the end of the Stagosaurus's tail.

I found out about the mathematics paper from a comment on Jerry Coyne's blog (by user Jair), which is where I saw the tweet containing the Gary Larson cartoon.