The Sauroposeidon stuff is cribbed from this post. For the pros and cons of scale bars in figures, see the comment thread after this post. MYDD is, of course, a thing now. Previous posts in this series. Reference: Wedel, M.J., and Taylor, M.P. 2013. Neural spine bifurcation in sauropod dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation: ontogenetic and phylogenetic implications.
Link from second slide. Other posts in this series. Reference: 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.
As a break from photography posts, here are four pretty big vertebrae that swirl in the same thought-space in my head. All are shown to scale, in right lateral view.
The links in the first slide: GIMP Unsharp mask tutorial Fast and easy color balancing Mike’s post on desaturating the background in specimen photos is here, and previous posts in this series are here.
Previous posts in this series are here.
This whole section, including the title, is mostly swiped from Mike’s Tutorial 17. Other posts in this series are here. Papers referenced in these slides: Farke, Andrew A., and Sertich, Joseph J.W. 2013. An abelisauroid theropod dinosaur from the Turonian of Madagascar. PLoS ONE 8(4): e62047. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0062047 [PDF] Taylor, Michael P., Mathew J. Wedel and Richard L. Cifelli. 2011.
Previous posts in this series: Part 1: Intro and Stromer Part 2: Taking good photos Part 3: Backdrops and lighting And the rest of the series is here.
Following on from Matt’s post about the difficulty of photographing big specimens without distortion, I thought I’d have a play with our best Sauroposeidon C8 photo, which I think is this one: (That’s been the basis for classic SV-POW!
Here are two photos of what I infer to be C8 of OMNH 53062, the holotype of Sauroposeidon . The top one was taken by Mike during our visit to the OMNH in 2007. If you’re a regular you may recognize it from several older posts: 1, 2, 3. The bottom one was taken by Mike Callaghan, the former museum photographer at the OMNH, sometime in 1999 or 2000.
One aspect of sauropod neck cartilage that’s been overlooked — and this applies to all non-avian dinosaurs, not just sauropods — is the configuration of the cartilage in their necks. It’s not widely appreciated that birds’ necks differ from those of all other animals in this respect, and we don’t yet know whether sauropods resembled birds or mammals.