New paper out today with Logan King, Julia McHugh, and Brian Curtice, on pneumatic ribs in Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus (King et al. 2024). This one had an unusual gestation. In the summer of 2002 2022 I did a road trip to Utah and western Colorado with my friend and frequent collaborator Jessie Atterholt.
This is one of those things that has been sitting in my brain, gradually heating up and getting denser, until it achieved criticality, melted down my spinal cord, and rocketed out my fingers and through the keyboard. Stand by for caffeine-fueled testifyin’ mode.
Let’s look again at Figure 7 of our recent paper on bifurcated cervical ribs in apatosaurines: {.size-full .wp-image-21519 aria-describedby=“caption-attachment-21519” loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“21519” permalink=“http://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/wedel-and-taylor-2023-on-bifurcated-cervical-ribs/figure-7-diplo-apato-muscle-comparison-2/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/figure-7-diplo-apato-muscle-comparison.jpeg”
Last time I promised you exciting news about sauropod neck-muscle mass. Let none say that I do not fulfil covenents. And, as usual, when talking about sauropod neck muscle mass, I’m going to start by talking about bird legs.
I don’t remember now when I first noticed bifurcated cervical ribs in apatosaurines. I imagine 2016 at the latest, because on our Sauropocalypse that year Mike and I saw examples at both BYU and Dinosaur Journey.
Here are some cervical ribs of sauropods that show a spectrum of morphologies, from a low dorsal process that makes an obtuse angle with the shaft of the rib in Dicraeosaurus (upper right), to one that makes a right angle in Brontosaurus (center), to a prominent spike of bone in Apatosaurus (bottom left), to a […]
Everybody(*) knows that the turiasaurian sauropod Moabosaurus has bifurcated cervical ribs: it was all anyone was talking about back when that animal was described (Britt et al. 2017). We’ve featured the best rib here before, and here it is again: {.alignnone .size-full .wp-image-21111 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“21111”
I haven’t blogged about blogging in a while. Maybe because blogging already feels distinctly old-fashioned in the broader culture. A lot of the active discussion migrated away a long time ago, to Facebook and Twitter, and then to other social media outlets as each one in turn goes over the enshittification event horizon.
New paper out today in PeerJ: Lei R, Tschopp E, Hendrickx C, Wedel MJ, Norell M, Hone DWE. 2023. Bite and tooth marks on sauropod dinosaurs from the Morrison Formation. PeerJ 11:e16327 http://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.16327 This one had a long gestation.
