Western University of Health Sciences

Matt Wedel

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image-title="MWC 861 bitten pubis – fossil and bronze"
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sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mwc-861-bitten-pubis-fossil-and-bronze.jpg)

MWC 861 in bone (left) and in bronze (right).
:::

Here's a cool comparo. I was on the road recently, and since I was
passing through Fruita, Colorado, I got some photos of my old friends
MWC 861 and MWC 4011, a pubis and ischium, respectively, of
*Apatosaurus*, with deep bite marks on their distal ends from a big
theropod, probably *Allosaurus* (you may remember these awesome
specimens from
[previous](https://svpow.com/2014/05/02/mid-mesozoic-field-conference-day-3-dinosaur-journey-museum/)
[posts](https://svpow.com/2023/11/14/new-paper-theropod-bite-marks-on-morrison-sauropod-bones/)).
That's MWC 861 above on the left. 

A week later I was passing through Tucumcari, New Mexico, and I decided
it was finally time I stopped in at the [Mesalands Dinosaur
Museum](https://www.mesalands.edu/community/dinosaur-museum/), whose
billboards I'd seen along I-40 numerous times on drives between SoCal
and Oklahoma. Mesalands Dinosaur Museum is run by Mesalands Community
College, which has a metalworking program and a bronze foundry.
Evidently a lot of students cast fossils in bronze, and a good chunk of
the museum exhibits are made of bronze --- including the cast of MWC 861
above on the right.

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image-title="Matt with MWC bitten Apato bones" image-description=""
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This is the appropriate reaction to putting your grubby mitts on real
sauropod bones that were really bitten by real theropods.
:::

Why is my big dumb hand in the photos? When our theropod bite mark paper
came out last fall (Lei et al. 2023), it stirred up some media interest,
and one request I was not prepared for was for photos of the bite marks
with a hand in for scale. I had a few, mostly of CM 555 (you can see
those
[here](https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/lei-et-al-2023-on-theropod-bitten-morrison-sauropods/)),
but to my immense irritation, I'd never taken any photos of the
much-more-impressive MWC 861 and MWC 4011 with my hands in the shots for
scale. I've now rectified that oversight.

[![](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mwc-4011-apatosaurus-ischium-distal-end-cast.jpg?w=480){.size-large
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image-title="MWC 4011 Apatosaurus ischium distal end cast"
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sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2024/02/mwc-4011-apatosaurus-ischium-distal-end-cast.jpg)

Incidentally, [Gaston Design](https://gastondesign.com/) sells casts of
the ischium, MWC 4011, both the [whole
bone](https://gastondesign.com/product/apatosaurus-ischium-wteeth-marks/)
and just the [bitten distal
end](https://gastondesign.com/product/apatosaurus-ischium-teeth-marks-distal-end/).
I picked up one of the latter while passing through Fruita. Do *not*
judge Rob Gaston's work by this particular cast, which is unfinished.
Rob warned me in advance that he hadn't time to finish the painting and
antiquing, but I could have the cast anyway if I was interested. He also
gave me a ton of advice on how to finish it myself, which I will be
attempting in the future. In the meantime, yay! New toy!

So if you're driving through Colorado on I-70, stop in Dinosaur Journey
to see and touch some pretty amazing specimens. And if you're driving
through New Mexico on I-40, stop in the Mesalands Dinosaur Museum and do
the same.

## Reference

[Lei R, Tschopp E, Hendrickx C, Wedel MJ, Norell M, Hone DWE. 2023. Bite
and tooth marks on sauropod dinosaurs from the Morrison Formation. PeerJ
11:e16327
http://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.16327](https://peerj.com/articles/16327/)

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[doi:10.59350/gaewv-x6f11](https://doi.org/10.59350/gaewv-x6f11)


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Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

A bite-marked Apatosaurus pubis, in bone and in bronze