convincing genetic engineers that everyone would look better if they had sauropod tails. If you have no idea what I’m on about, go check out XKCD.

We’re just back from SVPCA 2013 in Edinburgh. The first part of the meeting was held at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, but on Friday we moved to the National Museums Scotland. Which is awesome. And free to the public.

Those familiar with Lull (1919: plate II: figure 2) will recognise this as “vertebra Q” of the Barosarus lentus holotype YPM 429, in ventral view. Stay tuned for more exciting Barosaurus -related news! References Lull, R. S. 1919. The sauropod dinosaur Barosaurus Marsh. Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences 6 :1-42 and plates I-VII.

Last Sunday I got to hang out with Brian Engh and some of his friends in LA. You may remember Brian from this, this, this, this, and, most notoriously, this. We got to drawing dinosaurs, naturally. Now, for me to try to draw dinosaurs next to Brian is more than a little intimidating. I really felt the need to bring my A-game. So this is what I came up with.

Anyone else see these images and really, REALLY want to go dissect one of these bad boys? From the moment I saw this in the trailer, I was thinking: “WANT!” Click to embiggen, and check out the heavy equipment being used to cart off the soft tissue.

From The Dinosaur Heresies. Part 1.

Yesterday I was in Oxford for the Rigour and Openness in 21st Century Science conference (web-site here, tweets here though they also include newer ones from Day 2 which is happening as I write this). There was a lot to enjoy about the day, including meeting Cameron Neylon of PLOS and Jason Hoyt of PeerJ, both for the first time.

I was cruising the monographs the other night, looking for new ideas, when the humerus of Opisthocoelicaudia stopped me dead in my tracks. I think you’ll agree it is an arresting sight: Opisthocoelicaudia right humerus in medial, anterior, lateral, and posterior views, from Borsuk-Bialynicka (1977: figure 7) I’d seen it before, but somehow I had never grokked its grotesque fatness.

One of our army of field correspondents, Seth Segal, sent us a scan of this cartoon from the spring 2011 issue (#97) of Prehistoric Times (yes, we’re a bit late to the party on this one). Shifty little weasels that we are, we were entertained by it, so we tracked down John Trotter at Paintmonkey Studios. He kindly sent the nice version you see above, and gave us permission to post.

My friend, colleague, and sometime coauthor Dave Hone sent the above cartoon, knowing about my more-than-passing interest in sauropod neurology. It was drawn by Ed McLachlan in the early 1980s for Punch! magazine in the UK (you can buy prints starting at £18.99 here). I know that this isn’t the only image in the “oblivious sauropods getting eaten” genre.