Back in 2008, Matt and I were at the Museum Für Naturkunde Berlin. We spent some time down in the collections, where we were particularly pleased to see the much-admir’d C8 of Giraffatitan ‘s paralectotype, MB.R.2181 (previously known as HMN SII). While we were down there, we found a C8 from Plateosaurus , too, so we put that next to the Giraffatitan vertebra and shot them together: I’m just sayin’, is all.

This photograph is of what I consider the closest thing to the Platonic Ideal sauropod vertebra: it’s the eighth cervical of our old friend the Giraffatitan brancai paralectotype MB.R.2181.

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.

In the recent post on serial variation in sauropod cervicals, I wrote: Even in ‘adult’ sauropods like the big mounted Apatosaurus and Diplodocus skeletons, the anterior cervicals are less complex than the posterior ones.

UPDATE April 16, 2012: The paper is officially published now. I’ve updated the citation and link below accordingly. More new goodies: Yates, A.M., Wedel, M.J., and Bonnan, M.F. 2012. The early evolution of postcranial skeletal pneumaticity in sauropodomorph dinosaurs. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 57(1):85-100. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4202/app.2010.0075 This is only kinda sorta published.

Why we do mass estimates Mass estimates are a big deal in paleobiology.