A short post this time, partly because it’s late, partly because the hotel internet is sucking bigtime–probably as the hotels fill up for the weekend. I simply don’t have the bandwidth to post more, and in fact I had to downsize these few photos to get them to upload in polynomial time. Today we left Fruita, Colorado, and hit several Lower Cretaceous sites in eastern Utah on our way to Green River, Utah.

Aitor Ederra drew my attention to this painting by Frederik Spindler: It’s briefly discussed in a blog-post on changing norms in palaeo-art.

Here’s a working version of that link. Working link. Working links: Falkingham (2012) on photogrammetry for free Mallison photogrammetry tutorial 1 Mallison photogrammetry tutorial 2 Mallison photogrammetry tutorial 3 Mallison photogrammetry tutorial 4 The rest of this series. Reference Powell, Jaime E.  2003.

Hey, remember this? Your bound-for-PeerJ manuscript is like our Mauritian friend here, and the March 1 deadline is approaching like a hungry sailor with a club. So if you still want a voucher, let me know ASAP.

Recently I had the opportunity to give a talk on photographing specimens and preparing illustrations in Jim Parham‘s phylogenetics course at Cal State Fullerton. Jim is having each student (1) write a description of a specimen, (2) run a phylogenetic analysis, and (3) do some kind of calibration on their tree. I think that’s rad.

I made these back in the day. The idea was that you could print them out and have them along while dissecting bird necks, so you could draw on the muscles. It’s basically one drawing of an ostrich vertebra, morphed in GIMP and stacked to simulate articulation. All of the ones in this post show the vertebrae in left lateral view. If you need right views, flip ’em in GIMP or heck, I think even Windows Explorer will do that for you.

It’s a strange time of year for me. Teaching and SVP are both behind me, my tenure dossier is in (I’ll find out how that goes next April, probably), and for the first time in a while, I’m not shepherding any pressing manuscripts through the valley of potential rejection. Urgency has dissipated. Flights of fancy are very in right now. Take this post.

Anyone who’s found the SV-POW! Tutorials useful will also like the excellent, detailed osteology posts on Tom Carr’s newish blog Tyrannosauroidea Central. Highly recommended — especially for those, like me, who have a lot to learn about skulls. Composite skull of a subadult Albertosaurus libratus in right lateral view with the major openings and struts labeled. From the first of Carr’s blog entries, linked below.

Because “here’s that Brian Engh sketch of a sauropod literally stomping the guts out of a theropod you ordered” was a bit ungainly for a post title.

I know it’s been quiet around here for a while. Mike and I have both been on vacation, and before that, we were both up to our necks in day-job work, and after we get back, we’ll be up to our necks in revising accepted manuscripts.