Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

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A close encounter with an opossum

Published
Author Matt Wedel

Last night I took some boxes out to our recycling bin, and as I was walking along the back fence I did a double-take — I’d walked within a couple of feet of this opossum before I knew it was there.

Giant titanosaurs were just ridiculous

Published
Author Matt Wedel

Here’s Mike with the cast dorsal vertebra of Argentinosaurus that’s on display at the LACM. I tried to get myself equidistant from both Mike and the vert when I took the photo, but even I couldn’t quite believe it when I looked at it on my laptop.

Neck ontogeny in Tyrannosaurus rex, redux

Published
Author Mike Taylor

Back into 2019, when Matt and I visited the Carnegie Museum, we were struck by how different the necks of juvenile and adult Tyrannosaurus rex individuals are. In particular, the juvenile individual known as Jane has a slender and amost fragile-looking neck compared with the monstrously robust neck of its adult counterpart.

Surprisingly decent retail anatomy

Published
Author Matt Wedel

I popped into my local Michaels arts-n-crafts store today to see what Halloween goodies they had. One trend I can definitely get behind is the rise of anatomical oddities and cabinets of curiosities as Halloween decor.

Just chillin’ with my homie FMNH PR 25107

Published
Author Mike Taylor

That’s FMNH PR 25107, better known as a the holotype of Brachiosaurus altithorax — the biggest known dinosaur at the time of its description (Riggs 1903) and still for my money one of the most elegant, along with its buddy and one-time genus-mate Giraffatitan brancai.

Brachiosaurus altithorax, mounted inside the Field Museum, redux

Published
Author Mike Taylor

I have often lamented that there are so very few photos of the Field Museum’s Brachiosaurus mount from that brief six years — 1993 to 1999 — when it was the centrepiece of the main hall.

Why do you have to be this way, Camptosaurus?

Published
Author Mike Taylor

Most dinosaurs are elegant animals. Tyrannosaurs are elegant biting machines. Chasmosaurs are elegent. Brachiosaurs are hella elegant. Even ankylosaurs have their own robust elegance. And then there’s Camptosaurus. Why do you have to be so lumpen? What’s your head doing down there? What the heck are your ilia doing up there?

How many animals have bifurcated cervical ribs?

Published
Author Matt Wedel

A few sauropods have bifurcated cervical ribs. The most dramatic example that I know of is the turiasaur Moabosaurus (Britt et al. 2017). Mike and I got to see that material on the Sauropocalypse back in 2016, which is how we got the photo above.