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.

Western University of Health Sciences

Matt Wedel

::: {#attachment_21411 .wp-caption .aligncenter shortcode="caption" style="width: 1034px"}
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image-title="Ischium of Retribution – Brian Engh" image-description=""
image-caption=""
medium-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/ischium-of-retribution-brian-engh.jpg?w=300"
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width="480" height="253"
srcset="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/ischium-of-retribution-brian-engh.jpg?w=480 480w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/ischium-of-retribution-brian-engh.jpg?w=960 960w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/ischium-of-retribution-brian-engh.jpg?w=150 150w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/ischium-of-retribution-brian-engh.jpg?w=300 300w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/ischium-of-retribution-brian-engh.jpg?w=768 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/ischium-of-retribution-brian-engh.jpg)

[Brian Engh](https://www.livingrelicproductions.com/) made this and
posted it to FaceBook, writing, "Apropos of nothing here's Mathew Wedel
annihilating borderline parasitic theropods with the Bronto-Ischium of
Eternal Retribution --- a mythic energy weapon/sacred dinosaur ass-bone
discovered by Uncle Jim Kirkland, now stored in Julia McHugh's lair at
Dinosaur Journey Fruita CO."
:::

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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification) event
horizon.

But I continue to think that if you're an academic, it's incredibly
useful have a blog. I've thought this basically forever, but my reasons
have changed over time. At first I only thought of a blog as a way to
reach others --- SV-POW! is a nice soapbox to stand on, occasionally,
and it funnels attention toward our papers, which is always nice. Over
time I came to realize that a huge part of the value of SV-POW! is as a
venue for Mike and me to bat ideas around in. It's basically our paleo
playpen and idea incubator (I wrote a bit about this in my [2018 wrap-up
post](https://svpow.com/2018/12/31/2018-at-sv-pow/) --- already
semi-ancient by digital standards!).

More recently I've come to realize another part of the value of SV-POW!
to me, apart from anyone else on the planet: it's an archive for my
thoughts. If I want to find out what I was thinking about 10 or 15 years
ago, I can just go look. And at this point, there is far too much stuff
on SV-POW! for either Mike or me to remember it, so we regularly
rediscover interesting and occasionally promising observations and ideas
while trawling through our own archives.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from Nick Czaplewski,
who was a curator at OMNH when I was starting out and for many years
thereafter. He told me that you end up writing papers not only to your
colleagues but also to your future self, because there's no way you're
going to remember all the work you've done, all the ideas you've had,
all the hypotheses you've tested, and so your published output is going
to become a sort of external memory store for your future self. I've
always found that to be true, and it's even more true of SV-POW! than it
is for any one of my papers, because SV-POW! is vast and ever-evolving.

::: {#attachment_21414 .wp-caption .aligncenter shortcode="caption" style="width: 1034px"}
[![](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/ischium-of-retribution-side-scroller-stanley-wankel.jpg?w=480){.wp-image-21414
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orig-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/ischium-of-retribution-side-scroller-stanley-wankel.jpg"
orig-size="800,700" comments-opened="1"
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image-title="Ischium of Retribution side-scroller – Stanley Wankel"
image-description="" image-caption=""
medium-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/ischium-of-retribution-side-scroller-stanley-wankel.jpg?w=300"
large-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/ischium-of-retribution-side-scroller-stanley-wankel.jpg?w=800"
width="480" height="420"
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sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/ischium-of-retribution-side-scroller-stanley-wankel.jpg)

Created by Stanley Wankel, also from Facebook.
:::

I'll preface what comes next by acknowledging that I'm speaking from a
place of privilege (and not just because I have friends with
image-editing software and senses of humor). Broadly, because I'm a
cis-het white dude who had a fairly ridiculous string of opportunities
come his way (like
[these](https://svpow.com/2014/04/22/five-conversations/) and
[these](https://svpow.com/2019/11/22/werner-janensch-wannabe-lovefool/)),
but also narrowly in that I'm not trying to make a name for myself right
now. I have the freedom to not engage with social media. I never got on
Twitter (bullet dodged), and I don't plan on joining any of the
Twitter-alikes (my life is already full, and I already struggle enough
with online attention capture). I'm only on Facebook to keep in touch
with a few folks I can't easily reach otherwise, and to promote papers
when they come out (because I want to, not because I feel any pressure
to). And, frankly, at this point I expect every social media outlet to
decay, so my motivation to invest in whatever's next is minimal.

So, while I'm a definite social media skeptic at this point, I'm alert
to the fact that people just coming into the field may want or even need
to engage on the new platforms, because they don't have the option of
starting a reasonably popular paleo blog in 2007. But I still think it's
useful to have a blog, precisely because social media platforms decay,
and because the conversations that happen on them are so ephemeral.
Theoretically you could go back and see what you were saying on Twitter
or Facebook 10 years ago, but they don't make it easy, and why would
you? (And good luck doing the same with Google Plus.) So I think if I
was starting out at this point, I'd still have a blog, and every time I
wrote something substantial or at least interesting on the platform du
jour, I'd copy and paste it into a blog post. It might reach a few more
folks, or different ones; it might start different conversations; but
minimally it would be a way to record my thoughts for my own future
self.

I'm curious if anyone else finds that reasoning compelling. It will be
interesting to come back in 10 years and see if I still think the same.
At least when that time comes, I'll know where to come to find out what
I was thinking in late 2023, and I'll be able to (provided WordPress
doesn't mysteriously fail between now and then).

My other thought for the day is that SV-POW! has survived in part by
dodging a few specific bullets. The first was exhaustion --- after
blogging weekly for over two years, we decided that we wouldn't even
attempt a weekly schedule anymore, and just blog when we felt like it
(2018 was, by intention, an [odd year
out](https://svpow.com/2018/12/31/2018-at-sv-pow/), and we haven't
repeated that experiment). The second was over-specialization. For the
first couple of years we worked a sauropod vertebra into just about
every post, and if we blogged about something off-topic, we flagged it
as such. Over time the blog evolved into "Mike and Matt yap about
stuff", like [how to make your own anatomical
preparations](https://svpow.com/things-to-make-and-do/), and --- most
notably --- [open-access publishing and science
communication](https://svpow.com/the-digital-future/). I think that's
been crucial for the blog's survival --- Mike and I both chafe at
restrictions, even ones we set for ourselves, and it's nice to able to
fire up a WordPress draft and just let the thoughts spill out, whether
they have to do with sauropods or not.

::: {#attachment_21416 .wp-caption .aligncenter shortcode="caption" style="width: 1034px"}
[![](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/zoozoo-tet-stanley-wankel.jpg?w=480){.wp-image-21416
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image-title="ZooZoo Tet – Stanley Wankel" image-description=""
image-caption=""
medium-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/zoozoo-tet-stanley-wankel.jpg?w=300"
large-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/zoozoo-tet-stanley-wankel.jpg?w=782"
width="480" height="419"
srcset="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/zoozoo-tet-stanley-wankel.jpg?w=480 480w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/zoozoo-tet-stanley-wankel.jpg?w=150 150w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/zoozoo-tet-stanley-wankel.jpg?w=300 300w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/zoozoo-tet-stanley-wankel.jpg?w=768 768w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/zoozoo-tet-stanley-wankel.jpg 782w"
sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/zoozoo-tet-stanley-wankel.jpg)

Another Stanley Wankel creation. Gareth Monger commented that the band
name was ZooZoo Tet, which is instantly, totally, unimpeachably correct.
:::

A third bullet, which I'd nearly forgotten about, was blog-network
capture. As I was going back through my Gmail archive (my other digital
thought receptacle) in search of the origins of the "Morrison bites"
paper ([see last
post](https://svpow.com/2023/11/14/new-paper-theropod-bite-marks-on-morrison-sauropod-bones/)),
I ran into discussions with Darren with about [Tetrapod
Zoology](https://tetzoo.com/) moving from ScienceBlogs to the Scientific
American Blog Network. I had completely forgotten that back when the big
professional science-blogging networks were a thing, I had a secret
longing that SV-POW! would be invited. But they all either imploded
(ScienceBlogs) or became fatally reader-unfriendly (SciAm, at least for
TetZoo\*), and now I look back and think "Holy crap I'm glad we were
never asked." Because even if those networks didn't implode or
enshittify, they'd have wanted us to blog on time and on topic, and both
of those things would have killed SV-POW!

\*If you are on SciAm, or read any of their blogs, and like them: great.
I'm glad it's working out for you. It didn't for the only SciAm blog I
cared about.

So really both my points are sides of a single coin: have a digital
space of your own to keep your thoughts, even if only for your future
self, and don't tie that space to anything more demanding or ephemeral
than a website-hosting service.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[doi:10.59350/29yxb-qh763](https://doi.org/10.59350/29yxb-qh763)


{.wp-image-21411 .size-large aria-describedby=“caption-attachment-21411” loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“21411” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2023/11/16/two-thoughts-on-blogging-thought-archives-and-bullets-dodged/ischium-of-retribution-brian-engh/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/ischium-of-retribution-brian-engh.jpg” orig-size=“2048,1080” comments-opened=“1”

Two thoughts on blogging: thought archives, and bullets dodged

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.

::: {.mceTemp}
 
:::

::: {#attachment_21361 .wp-caption .aligncenter shortcode="caption" style="width: 1034px"}
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image-title="Bitten Apatosaurus ischium MWC 4011 distal end close"
image-description="" image-caption=""
medium-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-ischium-mwc-4011-distal-end-close.jpg?w=300"
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width="480" height="360"
srcset="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-ischium-mwc-4011-distal-end-close.jpg?w=480 480w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-ischium-mwc-4011-distal-end-close.jpg?w=960 960w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-ischium-mwc-4011-distal-end-close.jpg?w=150 150w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-ischium-mwc-4011-distal-end-close.jpg?w=300 300w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-ischium-mwc-4011-distal-end-close.jpg?w=768 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-ischium-mwc-4011-distal-end-close.jpg)

Distal end of MWC 4011, an ischium of *Apatosaurus louisae* that got
munched on by a large theropod, probably *Allosaurus* or *Ceratosaurus*.
On display at Dinosaur Journey in Fruita, Colorado.
:::

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](https://peerj.com/articles/16327/)

This one had a long gestation. The earliest trace I can find of it in my
Gmail archive is this bit I sent Dave Hone back in February of 2015:

> Sorry to not have gotten around to sending the sauropod bite mark
> stuff. I still have the note in my phone, I'll get on it ASAP. 

I have no idea what earlier conversation that was referencing ---
wherever it happened, my end of it apparently wasn't in Gmail. I also
apparently did not follow through, because on April 26, 2018, Dave wrote
to me, "I'm vaguely trying to resurrect a survey of sauropod bite
marks," referencing that 2015 message.

At that point I did actually kick into gear and started sending him
photos and refs. Which is how, about a month later, he sent one of
kindest messages I've ever received:

> This is starting to get silly, you've already turned up more examples
> than I've managed and you've also provided papers and photos too!
> Bearing that in mind, it seems ridiculous not to formally invite you
> in on this --- are you up for continuing to supply some Morrison
> sauropod bites?

At that point I was the third on the project, with Dave and Emanuel.
Later Mark Norell, Christophe Hendrickx, and Roberto Lei would join us,
with Christophe serving as our resident theropod tooth expert, and
Roberto in particular doing a lot of the heavy lifting of turning our
findings into a paper.

::: {#attachment_21363 .wp-caption .aligncenter shortcode="caption" style="width: 1034px"}
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image-title="Bitten Apatosaurus ischium MWC 4011 oblique"
image-description="" image-caption=""
medium-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-ischium-mwc-4011-oblique.jpg?w=300"
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sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-ischium-mwc-4011-oblique.jpg)

The rest of MWC 4011.
:::

So what's the upshot? For one, a few good-sized sauropod elements are
bitten through, showing that at least some Morrison theropods were
capable of inflicting real damage on big bones. So right off the bat we
have a survivorship problem: in a collections-based survey like the one,
we can only tally bite marks on bones that survived being bitten in good
enough shape to be collected and identified as sauropod bones. Bones
that were consumed by theropods, or shattered beyond the ability to be
preserved, recognized, or collected, are not available to us.\* In other
words, we can only tally bones in the "Goldilocks zone" of being
*directly chomped on but not too much* --- careful bites that stripped
meat from a bone without biting in are invisible, and so are bites so
violent or forceful that they destroyed the bone. This is sort of like
the osteological paradox in paleopathology (see [this
post](https://svpow.com/2022/02/19/sauro-throat-part-4-the-osteological-paradox/)),
just applied to individual bones instead of individual animals.

\*In a field-based study, it's possible to partially offset this by
collecting and analyzing *everything*, not just the identifiable bits.
Julia McHugh and colleagues did exactly that in their "nugget bucket"
study (McHugh et al. 2023), an IMHO brilliant follow-up to their papers
on theropod feeding traces (Drumheller et al. 2020) and invertebrate
feeding traces (McHugh et al. 2020) on dinosaur bones from the
Mygatt-Moore Quarry. One reason I'm so happy that Julia is at Dinosaur
Journey is that she keeps thinking of interesting stuff to do with that
collection.

I've [argued
before](https://svpow.com/2016/02/18/dinosaur-life-histories-are-plicomcated/#comment-141177)
that baby sauropods left few bones because most of them either grew up,
or --- vastly more commonly --- got processed into theropod poop. I felt
like that quip was coming back to haunt me in this project; I find it
perversely difficult to think clearly about evidence that I never get to
see!

::: {#attachment_21371 .wp-caption .aligncenter shortcode="caption" style="width: 1034px"}
[![](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-pubis-mwc-861.jpg?w=480){.wp-image-21371
.size-large aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21371" loading="lazy"
attachment-id="21371"
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image-title="Bitten Apatosaurus pubis MWC 861" image-description=""
image-caption=""
medium-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-pubis-mwc-861.jpg?w=300"
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width="480" height="300"
srcset="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-pubis-mwc-861.jpg?w=480 480w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-pubis-mwc-861.jpg?w=960 960w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-pubis-mwc-861.jpg?w=150 150w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-pubis-mwc-861.jpg?w=300 300w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-pubis-mwc-861.jpg?w=768 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/bitten-apatosaurus-pubis-mwc-861.jpg)

MWC 861, a pubis of *Apatosaurus louisae* with an extensively bitten
distal end. Definitely from the same quarry as MWC 4011 --- the
Mygatt-Moore Quarry, in far western Colorado --- and possibly from the
same individual. Also on display at Dinosaur Journey.
:::

Interestingly, we found zero examples of healed bites on Morrison
sauropod bones. So all of the bite marks we found were either from
successful predation events, or scavenging. And in fact we didn't find
that many bitten sauropod bones, period. We found 68 Morrison sauropod
bones with bite marks, out of the 600 or so that we actively surveyed.
That's about 11%, compared to 14% in later tyrannosaur-dominated faunas
(Jacobsen 1998). But also, we found a lot of wear on the teeth of large
Morrison theropods, which suggests that they were processing tough
stuff, including bones.

We suspect that big Morrison theropods were primarily targeting juvenile
and subadult sauropods, and scavenging dead adults when they could get
them. We think that partly because younger sauropods must have been more
numerous than adults (and maybe *vastly* more numerous), and partly
because almost all predators prefer easy fights to difficult ones. As I
wrote [back
when](https://svpow.com/2016/02/27/giant-oklahoma-apatosaurus-mount-from-above/#comment-141485),

> Even assuming that max-sized individuals were around -- which may not
> always have been the case... -- the theropods would have to walk right
> past a whole boatload of smaller, easier targets to get to them,
> ignoring winnable fights and achievable calories just to roll the dice
> in the most dangerous possible encounters.

Naturally Dave has explored a lot of these ideas in his previous papers,
especially Hone and Rauhut (2010) --- this new paper is basically a
spiritual successor to that one. Dave has his own blog post up about the
new paper,
[here](https://archosaurmusings.wordpress.com/2023/11/14/theropods-bit-sauropods-too/). 

::: {#attachment_21368 .wp-caption .aligncenter shortcode="caption" style="width: 1034px"}
[![](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/galeamopus_scenab_v2_davide_bonadonna.jpg?w=480){.wp-image-21368
.size-large aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21368" loading="lazy"
attachment-id="21368"
permalink="http://svpow.com/2023/11/14/new-paper-theropod-bite-marks-on-morrison-sauropod-bones/galeamopus_scenab_v2_davide_bonadonna/"
orig-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/galeamopus_scenab_v2_davide_bonadonna.jpg"
orig-size="7480,4251" comments-opened="1"
image-meta="{\"aperture\":\"0\",\"credit\":\"\",\"camera\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"created_timestamp\":\"0\",\"copyright\":\"\",\"focal_length\":\"0\",\"iso\":\"0\",\"shutter_speed\":\"0\",\"title\":\"\",\"orientation\":\"1\"}"
image-title="Galeamopus_scenaB_V2_Davide_Bonadonna" image-description=""
image-caption=""
medium-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/galeamopus_scenab_v2_davide_bonadonna.jpg?w=300"
large-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/galeamopus_scenab_v2_davide_bonadonna.jpg?w=1024"
width="480" height="273"
srcset="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/galeamopus_scenab_v2_davide_bonadonna.jpg?w=480 480w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/galeamopus_scenab_v2_davide_bonadonna.jpg?w=960 960w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/galeamopus_scenab_v2_davide_bonadonna.jpg?w=150 150w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/galeamopus_scenab_v2_davide_bonadonna.jpg?w=300 300w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/galeamopus_scenab_v2_davide_bonadonna.jpg?w=768 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/galeamopus_scenab_v2_davide_bonadonna.jpg)

*Allosaurus* munching on a dead *Galeamopus* while a pair of ceratosaurs
look on hungrily. Art courtesy of Davide Bonadonna
([www.davidebonadonna.it](http://www.davidebonadonna.it))
:::

Theropods primarily attacking small sauropods would explain the patterns
that we see, better than any alternative we can think of. Of course the
Morrison covers a lot of space and time, and [animals do all kinds of
weird
stuff](https://svpow.com/2011/11/28/accurate-vs-familiar-vs-usual-in-paleoart/)
if you watch them long enough, including suicidal attacks on much larger
prey. But if theropods were preferentially attacking adult sauropods,
we'd expect to see at least some healed bite marks from failed attacks,
and we'd also expect to see more bite marks, period. Somehow big
Morrison theropods were managing to put a lot of wear on their teeth
without leaving many tooth-marked sauropod bones behind, which seems
like a big mismatch. The best explanation we can think of is that the
theropods were accumulating that wear munching on juvenile sauropods
(which we thought they were doing anyway), and consuming or destroying
their bones in the process (which the theropods were well-equipped to
do).

But even if we're right, there's a ton we don't know yet. We struggled
to match any of the bite marks that we found to specific theropod taxa.
Taphonomy and collector bias are probably both big filters, especially
for bones that were bitten through or shattered before fossilization.
There are definitely important differences between quarries --- for
example, Mygatt-Moore has a ton of bitten bones, and the Carnegie Quarry
at Dinosaur National Monument has almost none, and we don't know why.

In sum, there's a lot to do, with interesting, tractable, as-yet-undone
projects surrounding this paper in a quantum fuzz like an electron
shell. Hopefully other folks will get out there and start turning those
potential projects into real ones.

::: {#attachment_21366 .wp-caption .aligncenter shortcode="caption" style="width: 1034px"}
[![](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/wedel-rocks-dinos.jpg?w=480){.wp-image-21366
.size-large aria-describedby="caption-attachment-21366" loading="lazy"
attachment-id="21366"
permalink="http://svpow.com/2023/11/14/new-paper-theropod-bite-marks-on-morrison-sauropod-bones/wedel-rocks-dinos/"
orig-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/wedel-rocks-dinos.jpg"
orig-size="2700,2700" comments-opened="1"
image-meta="{\"aperture\":\"0\",\"credit\":\"\",\"camera\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"created_timestamp\":\"0\",\"copyright\":\"\",\"focal_length\":\"0\",\"iso\":\"0\",\"shutter_speed\":\"0\",\"title\":\"\",\"orientation\":\"0\"}"
image-title="Wedel rocks dinos" image-description="" image-caption=""
medium-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/wedel-rocks-dinos.jpg?w=300"
large-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/wedel-rocks-dinos.jpg?w=1024"
width="480" height="480"
srcset="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/wedel-rocks-dinos.jpg?w=480 480w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/wedel-rocks-dinos.jpg?w=960 960w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/wedel-rocks-dinos.jpg?w=150 150w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/wedel-rocks-dinos.jpg?w=300 300w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/wedel-rocks-dinos.jpg?w=768 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/wedel-rocks-dinos.jpg)

MWC 4011, once more with feeling. And fiberglass. Photo by Brian Engh.
:::

## References

- [Drumheller, S.K., McHugh, J.B., Kane, M., Riedel, A. and D'Amore,
  D.C. 2020. High frequencies of theropod bite marks provide evidence
  for feeding, scavenging, and possible cannibalism in a stressed Late
  Jurassic ecosystem. PLoS One 15(5)
  p.e0233115.](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0233115)
- [Hone, D.W. and Rauhut, O.W. 2010. Feeding behaviour and bone
  utilization by theropod dinosaurs. Lethaia 43(2):
  pp.232-244.](https://www.idunn.no/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1502-3931.2009.00187.x)
- Jacobsen AR. 1998. Feeding behaviour of carnivorous dinosaurs as
  determined by tooth marks on dinosaur bones. Historical Biology
  13:17--26. DOI 10.1080/08912969809386569.
- [McHugh, J.B., Drumheller, S.K., Riedel, A. and Kane, M. 2020.
  Decomposition of dinosaurian remains inferred by invertebrate traces
  on vertebrate bone reveal new insights into Late Jurassic ecology,
  decay, and climate in western Colorado. PeerJ 8,
  p.e9510.](https://peerj.com/articles/9510/)
- Mchugh, J.B., Drumheller, S.K., Kane, M., Riedel, A. and Nestler,
  J.H. 2023. Assessing paleoecological data retention among disparate
  field collection regimes: a case study at the Mygatt-Moore Quarry
  (Morrison Formation). Palaios 38(5):233-239.

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[doi:10.59350/txkht-ewp95](https://doi.org/10.59350/txkht-ewp95)


New paper: theropod bite marks on Morrison sauropod bones

University of Bristol

Mike Taylor

More goodness from Osborn and Mook's (1921) gargantuan *Camarasaurus*
monograph, again prepared largely for [comparison with
"](http://svpow.com/2012/07/04/apatosaurus-minimus-left-ischium/ "“Apatosaurus” minimus left ischium")*Apatosaurus*"
*minimus*. [Last time, I showed you one of O&M's pubis
illustrations](http://svpow.com/2012/07/13/camarasaurus-pubes-of-the-amnh/ "Camarasaurus pubes of the AMNH").
Now an ischium:

[![](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/osbornmook1921-fig101-camarasaurus-left-ischium.jpeg?w=480&h=474 "OsbornMook1921-fig101-Camarasaurus-left-ischium"){.aligncenter
.size-full .wp-image-6575 loading="lazy" attachment-id="6575"
permalink="http://svpow.com/2012/07/14/camarasaurus-ischia-of-the-amnh/osbornmook1921-fig101-camarasaurus-left-ischium/"
orig-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/osbornmook1921-fig101-camarasaurus-left-ischium.jpeg"
orig-size="989,978" comments-opened="1"
image-meta="{\"aperture\":\"0\",\"credit\":\"\",\"camera\":\"\",\"caption\":\"\",\"created_timestamp\":\"0\",\"copyright\":\"\",\"focal_length\":\"0\",\"iso\":\"0\",\"shutter_speed\":\"0\",\"title\":\"\"}"
image-title="OsbornMook1921-fig101-Camarasaurus-left-ischium"
image-description="" image-caption=""
medium-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/osbornmook1921-fig101-camarasaurus-left-ischium.jpeg?w=300"
large-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/osbornmook1921-fig101-camarasaurus-left-ischium.jpeg?w=989"
width="480" height="474"
srcset="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/osbornmook1921-fig101-camarasaurus-left-ischium.jpeg?w=480&h=474 480w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/osbornmook1921-fig101-camarasaurus-left-ischium.jpeg?w=960&h=948 960w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/osbornmook1921-fig101-camarasaurus-left-ischium.jpeg?w=150&h=148 150w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/osbornmook1921-fig101-camarasaurus-left-ischium.jpeg?w=300&h=297 300w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/osbornmook1921-fig101-camarasaurus-left-ischium.jpeg?w=768&h=759 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](http://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/osbornmook1921-fig101-camarasaurus-left-ischium.jpeg)

This shows the left ischium AMNH 576o'/Is.4. Left column: proximal
aspect. Middle column, from top to bottom: medial, lateral, posterior
(no dorsal view was provided). Right column: distal. Heavily modified
from Osborn and Mook (1921: fig. 101) --- cleaned up, lettering and
lines removed, recomposed in a more informative layout, views rescaled
to better match each other, and tweaked for colour.

As usual, click through for full resolution (only 989 x 978 this time).

It's interesting to compare this with [the similarly composed
illustration of the "*Apatosaurus*" *minimus*
ischium](http://svpow.com/2012/07/04/apatosaurus-minimus-left-ischium/ "“Apatosaurus” minimus left ischium")
from last week.

# References

- [Osborn, Henry Fairfield, and Charles C. Mook. 1921. *Camarasaurus*,
  *Amphicoelias* and other sauropods of Cope. *Memoirs of the American
  Museum of Natural History*, n.s. 3:247-387, and plates
  LX-LXXXV.](http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/handle/2246/5724)


More goodness from Osborn and Mook’s (1921) gargantuan

 Camarasaurus

monograph, again prepared largely for comparison with “

 Apatosaurus

”

 minimus

. Last time, I showed you one of O&amp;M’s pubis illustrations. Now an ischium: This shows the left ischium AMNH 576o’/Is.4. Left column: proximal aspect. Middle column, from top to bottom: medial, lateral, posterior (no dorsal view was provided). Right column: distal.

Camarasaurus ischia of the AMNH

Here is another illustration that I prepared for the forthcoming
"*Apatosaurus*" *minimus* redescription. Compare this with [the sacrum
and fused
ilia](http://svpow.com/2012/07/01/apatosaurus-minimus-sacrumilia-illustration-from-forthcoming-description/ "“Apatosaurus” minimus sacrum/ilia: illustration from forthcoming description")
from the previous post.

::: {#attachment_6502 .wp-caption .aligncenter shortcode="caption" style="width: 490px"}
[![](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ischium1-composite-cropped.jpeg?w=480&h=521 "ischium1-composite-CROPPED"){.size-full
.wp-image-6502 aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6502" loading="lazy"
attachment-id="6502"
permalink="http://svpow.com/2012/07/04/apatosaurus-minimus-left-ischium/ischium1-composite-cropped/"
orig-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ischium1-composite-cropped.jpeg"
orig-size="4810,5229" comments-opened="1"
image-meta="{\"aperture\":\"4\",\"credit\":\"\",\"camera\":\"Canon PowerShot S100\",\"caption\":\"\",\"created_timestamp\":\"1340182136\",\"copyright\":\"\",\"focal_length\":\"11.439\",\"iso\":\"800\",\"shutter_speed\":\"0.04\",\"title\":\"\"}"
image-title="ischium1-composite-CROPPED" image-description=""
image-caption="ug
"
medium-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ischium1-composite-cropped.jpeg?w=276"
large-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ischium1-composite-cropped.jpeg?w=942"
width="480" height="521"
srcset="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ischium1-composite-cropped.jpeg?w=480&h=521 480w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ischium1-composite-cropped.jpeg?w=960&h=1042 960w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ischium1-composite-cropped.jpeg?w=138&h=150 138w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ischium1-composite-cropped.jpeg?w=276&h=300 276w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ischium1-composite-cropped.jpeg?w=768&h=835 768w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ischium1-composite-cropped.jpeg?w=942&h=1024 942w"
sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](http://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ischium1-composite-cropped.jpeg)

Left ischium of AMNH 675, "*Apatosaurus*" *minimus*. Left column:
proximal. Middle column, top to bottom: medial (inverted), dorsal,
lateral, ventral (all with proximal to left). Right column, distal.
Click through for very high resolution (4810 x 5229).
:::

Can you tell what it is yet?

By the way, I'd appreciate some advice on the directional nomenclature
here. Since I've illustrated the lateral view with the long axis
horizontal, I'm referring to the margin that's closest to the tail as
"dorsal" and the margin closest to the ground as "ventral". But since
the ischium is directed more or less posteroventrally, I guess you could
equally make a case for designating those two aspects as "posterior" and
"anterior" respectively. The third alternative is to embrace the
diagonality and call them "posterodorsal" and "anteroventral". Is one of
these schemes conventional?

Here is another illustration that I prepared for the forthcoming “

 Apatosaurus

”

 minimus

redescription. Compare this with the sacrum and fused ilia from the previous post. Left ischium of AMNH 675, “

 Apatosaurus

”

 minimus

. Left column: proximal. Middle column, top to bottom: medial (inverted), dorsal, lateral, ventral (all with proximal to left). Right column, distal.

Rogue Scholar Beiträge

Two thoughts on blogging: thought archives, and bullets dodged

New paper: theropod bite marks on Morrison sauropod bones

Camarasaurus ischia of the AMNH

“Apatosaurus” minimus left ischium