In a recent comment, Doug wrote: If I want to be a truly educated observer of Tyrannosaurus rex mounts, what 5 things should I look for in a reconstruction to assess if it is true to our current scientific understanding? I’m not talking tail dragging/upright at this point…we are well past that I hope.

We’re off to Oxford next week for SVPCA, so things may be quiet around here for a few days. Catch you on the flip side.

We’ve shown a lot of sauropod sacra around here lately (for example here, here, and here), so here’s a little look back down the tree. You haven’t heard from me much lately because I’ve been busy teaching anatomy. Still, I get to help people dissect for a living, so I can’t complain.

Thanks to the wonder of Osborn and Mook (1921), we have already seen multiview illustrations of the pubis and ischium of Camarasaurus . Now we bring you their Camarasaurus sacrum. This is the sacrum of Camarasaurus supremus AMNH 5761. Top row: dorsal view, with anterior to left. Middle row, from left to right: anterior, left lateral and posterior views. Bottom row: ventral view, with anterior to left.

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&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.

(First of all, for anyone who’s not familiar with the plural of “pubis”, it’s spelled “pubes” but pronounced “pyoo-bees”. Stop sniggering at the back.) As Matt and I struggle to figure out the partial pubis that is one of the elements of the “ Apatosaurus ” minimus specimen AMNH 675, one of the most helpful references is Osborn and Mook’s (1921) epic monograph on Camarasaurus . It’s not that 675 particularly resembles

From the collections of the American Museum of Natural History, I give you the sacrum and fused ilia of “ Apatosaurus ” minimus AMNH 675, as correctly identified by Steve P in a comment to the previous post: As Steve P rightly pointed out, AMNH 675 was designated as Brontosaurus sp. by Osborn (1904), and made the type of Apatosaurus minimus by Mook (1917). It’s been known for some time that whatever this is,

A couple of posts back, when Matt was talking about turtle laminae, he included a photo of me in front of the skeleton of the giant turtle Archelon . Also in that photo is the tripod I was using — if you want to call it that — a tripod of altogether startling inadequacy. Here it is again, this time in the collections of the AMNH: (Bonus SV-POW!

Sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up. You may recall a story from the Onion Our Dumb Century book, allegedly from 1904, about the skeleton of Satan being discovered in Wyoming.