Luke Horton asked in a comment on a recent post: Given the chance to examine a titanosaur cadaver with your hypothetical army of anatomists, what would you look for first? *FACEPALM* How we’ve gone almost 17 years without posting about a hypothetical sauropod dissection is quite beyond my capacity.
[This post received first place in the 2024 Blog Extravaganza at Adam Mastroianni’s Experimental History. Many thanks, Adam!] I first had this thought in 2019, and I started this draft in early 2020, but…you know how that particular story turned out. I’m picking it back up again now because I’ve had the titular point reinforced on several trips and projects over the past couple of years.
Our old friend Ray Wilhite sent us this glorious photo of a horse neck that he dissected recently, with permission to post here: {.alignnone .size-full .wp-image-20849 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“20849” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2023/03/13/the-equine-interspinal-ligaments-of-ray-wilhite/equine-neck-dissection-1/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/equine-neck-dissection-1.jpg” orig-size=“4080,3072” comments-opened=“1”
Two and a half years ago, I posted a glorious hemisected hen, taken (with permission) from a poster by Roberts et al. 2016, and supplied by Ray Wilhite, best known in this parish for his work on sauropod appendicular material. At the end of that post, I blithely promised “More from this poster in a subsequent post!”, and then — predictably — forgot all about it. My apologies.
Ray Wilhite posted this gorgeous image on a Facebook thread, and we’re re-posting it here with his permission.
{.size-large .wp-image-15536 .aligncenter loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“15536” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2018/12/04/what-half-a-pig-head-looks-like/pig-sectioning-1-jessie-sawing-pig-head-close/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/pig-sectioning-1-jessie-sawing-pig-head-close.jpg” orig-size=“1800,2400” comments-opened=“1” image-meta=“{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone
{.aligncenter .wp-image-14942 .size-large loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“14942” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2018/06/06/exploded-turtles-of-the-naturhistorisches-museum-wien/exploded-sea-turtles-naturhistorisches-museum-vienna/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/exploded-sea-turtles-naturhistorisches-museum-vienna.jpg” orig-size=“2800,2100” comments-opened=“1” image-meta=“{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone
{.aligncenter .size-full .wp-image-9501 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“9501” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2014/01/10/bird-vertebra-diagrams/bird-neck-note-sheet/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/bird-neck-note-sheet.png” orig-size=“1800,1200” comments-opened=“1” image-meta=“{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":""}”
One aspect of sauropod neck cartilage that’s been overlooked — and this applies to all non-avian dinosaurs, not just sauropods — is the configuration of the cartilage in their necks. It’s not widely appreciated that birds’ necks differ from those of all other animals in this respect, and we don’t yet know whether sauropods resembled birds or mammals.
{.aligncenter .size-full .wp-image-7602 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“7602” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2013/02/06/what-half-a-horse-head-looks-like/hemisected-horse-head/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/hemisected-horse-head.jpg” orig-size=“2272,1704” comments-opened=“1”