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 . I had a spare morning in Chicago two Tuesday ago, and Bill Simpson (collection manager of fossil vertebrates at the Field Museum) managed to fit it a collections

Just to wash our mouths out after all the theropod-related unpleasantness yesterday: {.alignnone .size-full .wp-image-20548 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“20548” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2022/12/04/heres-that-ventral-view-apatosaur-cervical-anaglyph-you-ordered/dscn1412-1413-big-bink-apatosaur-c7-ventral-anaglyph/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/dscn1412-1413-big-bink-apatosaur-c7-ventral-anaglyph.jpeg”

Here are cervicals 4 and 8 from MB.R.2180, the big mounted Giraffatitan in Berlin. Even though this is one of the better sauropod necks in the world, the vertebrae have enough taphonomic distortion that trying to determine what neutral, uncrushed shape they started from is not easy.

Long before Matt and others were CT-scanning sauropod vertebrae to understand their internal structure, Werner Janensch was doing it the old-fashioned way.

Unworn: {.size-large .wp-image-16745 .aligncenter loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“16745” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2019/11/02/worn-and-unworn-camarasaurus-teeth-in-the-collections-at-dinosaur-national-monument/dino-collections-unworn-camarasaurus-tooth/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/dino-collections-unworn-camarasaurus-tooth.jpg” orig-size=“3200,2400” comments-opened=“1”

{.size-large .wp-image-16741 .aligncenter loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“16741” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2019/10/27/brachiosaurus-and-human-metacarpals-compared/brachiosaurus-and-human-metacarpals-compared/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/brachiosaurus-and-human-metacarpals-compared.jpg” orig-size=“2100,2800” comments-opened=“1” image-meta=“{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone

{.size-large .wp-image-16693 .aligncenter attachment-id=“16693” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2019/10/12/a-nice-pneumatic-allosaurus-cervical/pneumatic-allosaurus-cervical/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/pneumatic-allosaurus-cervical.jpg” orig-size=“2000,1500” comments-opened=“1” image-meta=“{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone

You’ll remember that we’ve been playing with CM 555, a subadult apatosaurine of indeterminate species, though John McIntosh assigned it to Brontosaurus (then Apatosaurus ) excelsus . At the start of the week, we had the centra and neural arches of cervicals 1-14, plus there were some appendicular elements on a shelf that we’d not yet gone to. But then today, Matt found this drawer: {.alignnone .wp-image-15853 .size-full

We’ve posted a lot here about how crazy the cervical vertebrae of apatosaurines are (for example: 1, 2, 3), and especially the redonkulosity of their cervical ribs.

{.size-large .wp-image-15370 .aligncenter loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“15370” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2018/09/25/vertebral-orientation-varanus-komodoensis-would-like-a-word/varanus-komodoensis-caudal-right-lateral-1600/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/varanus-komodoensis-caudal-right-lateral-1600.jpg” orig-size=“1200,1600” comments-opened=“1” image-meta=“{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone