Western University of Health Sciences

Matt Wedel

[![](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/amnh-516-diplodocus-sacrum-osborn-1904-fig-3.png?w=654&h=1024){.size-large
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image-title="AMNH 516 Diplodocus sacrum – Osborn 1904 fig 3"
image-description=""
image-caption="<p>Sacrum of Diplodocus AMNH 516 in left lateral and (for our purposes irrelevant) ventral views. (Osborn 1904 figure 3)</p>
"
medium-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/amnh-516-diplodocus-sacrum-osborn-1904-fig-3.png?w=191"
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sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/amnh-516-diplodocus-sacrum-osborn-1904-fig-3.png)

Here's D10 and the sacrum of *Diplodocus* AMNH 516 in left lateral and
ventral view, from Osborn (1904: fig. 3). Note how the big lateral
pneumatic foramina, here labeled 'pleurocoelia', start out up at the top
of the centrum in D10 and kind of pinch out up there, seemingly entirely
absent by S3 (although there is a suspicious-looking shadowed spot above
and behind the sacral rib stump labeled 'r3'). Then on S4 and S5 the big
foramina are back, but now they're low on the centrum, ventral to the
sacral ribs. In ventral view, the foramina on D10, S1, and S2 aren't
visible--they're both over the curve of the centrum, and in the case of
S1 and S2, obscured by the sacral ribs. But in S4 and S5, the big
lateral foramina are visible in ventral view.

I've been interested in a while in this seeming hand-off in centrum
pneumatization from dorsolateral, which prevails in the dorsal
vertebrae, to ventrolateral, which prevails in the posterior sacral and
caudal vertebrae. Almost all sauropod dorsals have the pneumatic
foramina quite high on the centrum, sometimes even encroaching on the
neural arch. But if sauropod caudals have pneumatic fossae or foramina
on the centrum, they're usually quite low, and almost always below the
caudal rib or transverse process (there may also be pneumatic fossae on
the neural arch and spine)--for evidence, see Wedel and Taylor (2013b).
To me this implies two different sets of diverticula.

[![](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/haplocanthosaurus-cm-879-sacral-4-right-dorsolateral.jpg?w=1024&h=768){.size-large
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image-title="Haplocanthosaurus CM 879 sacral 4 right dorsolateral"
image-description="" image-caption=""
medium-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/haplocanthosaurus-cm-879-sacral-4-right-dorsolateral.jpg?w=300"
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sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/haplocanthosaurus-cm-879-sacral-4-right-dorsolateral.jpg)

I think that in part because sometimes you get both sets of diverticula
acting on a single vert. Here's the centrum of sacral 4 of
*Haplocanthosaurus* CM 879 in right dorsolateral view; anterior is to
the right.

[![](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/haplocanthosaurus-cm-879-sacral-4-right-dorsolateral-annotated.jpg?w=1024&h=768){.size-large
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image-title="Haplocanthosaurus CM 879 sacral 4 right dorsolateral annotated"
image-description="" image-caption=""
medium-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/haplocanthosaurus-cm-879-sacral-4-right-dorsolateral-annotated.jpg?w=300"
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sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/haplocanthosaurus-cm-879-sacral-4-right-dorsolateral-annotated.jpg)

Here's the same thing annotated (yeah, it does look a little like an Ent
who is alarmed because his left eye has been overgrown by a huge nasal
tumor). This vert has two sets of pneumatic features on the centrum: a
big lateral fossa below the sacral rib articulation, presumably
homologous with the same feature in S4 of the *Diplodocus* above; and a
smaller dorsolateral fossa above and behind sacral rib articulation.

Unfortunately, CM 879 doesn't tell us much about how these two sets of
diverticula might have changed along the column. The centra of S1-S3
were not found, S5 lacks both sets of fossae, the first caudal has
fossae both on the centrum, below the caudal rib, and low on the arch,
and the second and subsequent caudals lack both sets of fossae. (I wrote
a LOT more about pneumaticity in this individual in my 2009 air sacs
paper, which is linked below.)

Working out how these diverticula change serially is a tractable
problem. Someone just needs to sit down with a reasonably complete,
well-preserved series that includes posterior dorsals, all the sacrals,
and the proximal caudals--or ideally several such series--and trace out
all of the pneumatic features. As far as I know, that's never been done,
but feel free to correct me if I've missed something. I'm neck deep in
other stuff, so if someone wants that project, have at it. (If you
happen to look into this, I'd be grateful for a heads up, so we don't
run over each other if I do get a yen to investigate further myself.)

### References

- Osborn, Henry F.  1904.  Manus, sacrum and caudals of Sauropoda. 
  Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 20:181-190.
- [Wedel, M.J. 2009. Evidence for bird-like air sacs in saurischian
  dinosaurs. Journal of Experimental Zoology
  311A:611-628.](http://sauroposeidon.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/wedel-2009-air-sacs.pdf)
- Wedel, Mathew J., and Michael P. Taylor. 2013. [Caudal pneumaticity
  and pneumatic hiatuses in the sauropod
  dinosaurs *Giraffatitan* and *Apatosaurus*.](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0078213)*PLOS
  ONE* **8(10)**:e78213. 14 pages. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0078213
  \[[PDF](http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchObject.action?uri=info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0078213&representation=PDF)\]


Evidence for bird-like air sacs in Saurischian dinosaurs

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Sacral pneumatization in sauropods was complex

University of Bristol

Mike Taylor

A couple of times now, I've pitched in an abstract for a Masters project
looking at neck cartilage, hoping someone at Bristol will work on it
with me co-supervising, but so far no-one's bitten. Here's how I've been
describing it:

**Understanding posture and motion in the necks of sauropods: the
crucial role of cartilage in intervertebral joints**

The sauropod dinosaurs were an order of magnitude bigger than any other
terrestrial animal. Much sauropod research has concentrated on their
long necks, which were crucial to their success (e.g. Sander et al.
2010). One approach to understanding neck function tries to determine
neutral posture and range of motion by modelling the cervical vertebrae
as a mechanical system (e.g. Stevens and Parrish 1999).

The raw material of such studies is fossilised vertebrae, but these are
problematic for several reasons. The invariable incompleteness and
distortion of sauropod neck fossils causes fundamental difficulties; but
even given perfect fossils, the lack of preserved cartilage means that
the bones are not shaped or sized as they were in life.

Ignoring cartilage has dramatic consequences for neutral posture, range
of motion and even length of necks: pilot studies (Cobley 2011, Taylor
2011) found that intact bird necks are 8--12% longer than articulated
sequences of their dry bones, and that figure is as high as 24% for a
juvenile giraffe neck. A turkey neck postzygapophysis was 26% longer
when cartilage was included than after being stripped down to naked
bone.

We do not yet know how much articular cartilage sauropods had in their
necks, nor even what kind of intervertebral joints they had:
crocodilians have fibrocartilaginous discs like those of mammals, while
birds have synovial joints, so the extant phylogenetic bracket is
uninformative.

The project will involve dissection and measurement of bird and
crocodilian necks, documenting the extent and shape of articular
cartilage, identifying osteological correlates of fibrocartilaginous and
synovial joints, and applying this data to sauropods to determine the
nature of their neck joints and length of their necks, to reconstruct
the lost cartilage, and to determine its effect on neutral pose and
range of motion.

Following completion, we anticipate publication of the project.

**References**

Cobley, Matthew J. 2011. *The flexibility and musculature of the ostrich
neck: implications for the feeding ecology and reconstruction of the
Sauropoda (Dinosauria: Saurischia)*. MSc Thesis, Department of Earth
Sciences, University of Bristol. vi+64 pages.

Sander, P. Martin, Andreas Christian, Marcus Clauss, Regina Fechner,
Carole T. Gee, Eva-Maria Griebeler, Hanns-Christian Gunga, Jürgen
Hummel, Heinrich Mallison, Steven F. Perry, Holger Preuschoft, Oliver W.
M. Rauhut, Kristian Remes, Thomas Tütken, Oliver Wings and Ulrich
Witzel. 2010. Biology of the sauropod dinosaurs: the evolution of
gigantism. *Biological Reviews* **86**:117--155.
doi:10.1111/j.1469-185X.2010.00137.x

Stevens, Kent A., and J. Michael Parrish. 1999. Neck Posture and Feeding
Habits of Two Jurassic Sauropod Dinosaurs. *Science* **284**:798--800.
doi:10.1126/science.284.5415.798

Taylor, Michael P., and Mathew J. Wedel. 2011. Sauropod necks: how much
do we really know?. p. 20 in Richard Forrest (ed.), *Abstracts of
Presentations, 59th Annual Symposium of Vertebrae Palaeontology and
Comparative Anatomy, Lyme Regis, Dorset, UK, September 12th--17th 2011*.
37
pp. <http://www.miketaylor.org.uk/dino/pubs/svpca2011/TaylorWedel2011-what-do-we-really-know.ppt>

(Obviously some part of this have since been covered by [my and Matt's
first cartilage
paper](http://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-and-wedel-2013c-on-neck-cartilage/ "Taylor and Wedel (2013c) on neck cartilage"),
but plenty has not.)

I now think there are two reasons no-one's taken up this project: first,
because I wrote it as very focussed only on the question of what type of
joint was present, whereas there are plenty of related issues to be
investigated along the way; and second, because I wrote it as a quest to
discover a specific treasure (an osteological correlate), with the
implication that if there's no treasure to be found then the project
will have been a failure.

But I do think there is still plenty of important work to be done in
this area, and that there's lots of important information to be got out
of comparative dissection of extant critters.

If anyone out there fancies working in this area, I'd be delighted. I'd
also be happy to offer whatever advice and help I could.

# Update (18 October 2014)

Somehow I'd forgotten, when I wrote this post, that I'd previously
written [a more detailed post about the discs-in-sauropod-necks
problem](http://svpow.com/2013/11/08/did-sauropod-necks-have-intervertebral-discs/ "Did sauropod necks have intervertebral discs?").
If you're interested in the problem, you should read that.


A couple of times now, I’ve pitched in an abstract for a Masters project looking at neck cartilage, hoping someone at Bristol will work on it with me co-supervising, but so far no-one’s bitten.

Does anyone want a project? How can we understand sauropod neck cartilage better?

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.

Did sauropod necks have intervertebral discs?

The LSE Impact blog has a new post, [Berlin 11 satellite conference
encourages students and early stage researchers to influence shift
towards Open
Access](http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2013/10/09/berlin-11-satellite-conference-students-open-access/).
Thinking about this,  Jon Tennant
([@Protohedgehog](https://twitter.com/Protohedgehog)) just tweeted this
[important
idea](https://twitter.com/Protohedgehog/status/388000341452943361):

Would be nice to see a breakdown of OA vs non-OA publications based on
career-stage of first author. Might be a wake-up call.

It would be *very* useful. It makes me think of Zen Faulkes's important
2011 blog-post, [What have you done lately that needed
tenure?](http://neurodojo.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/what-have-you-done-lately-that-needed.html).
We should be seeing the big push towards open access coming from senior
academics who are established in their roles don't need to scrabble
around for jobs like early-career researchers. Yet my impression is that
in fact early-career researchers are doing a lot of the pro-open heavy
lifting.

Is that impression true?

We should find out.

Here's one possible experimental design: take a random sample of 100
Ph.D students, 100 post-docs, 100 early-career researchers in
tenure-track jobs and 100 tenured researchers. For each of them, analyse
their last ten years of publications and determine what proportion are
paywalled, what proportion are free to read (e,g, on arXiv or in an
all-rights-reserved IR), and what proportion are true
([BOAI-compliant](http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#openaccess))
open access.

An alternative approach would be to randomly sample 1000 open-access
papers (from PLOS and BMC journals, for example), and 1000 paywalled
papers (from Elsevier and Springer, say) and find the career-stage of
their authors. I'm not sure which approach would be better?

Who is going to do this?

I think it would be a nice, tractable first project for someone who
wants to get into academic research but hasn't previously published. It
would be hugely useful, and I'm guessing widely cited. Does anyone fancy
it?

# Update

Georg Walther has started [a
hackpad](https://hackpad.com/Analysis-of-Open-Access-Involvment-by-Career-Stage-PzAK6r4kefd)
about this nascent project. Since Jon "Protohedgehog" Tennant has now
[tweeted about
it](https://twitter.com/Protohedgehog/status/388635314291363840), I
assume it's OK to publicise. If you're interested, feel free to leap in!


The LSE Impact blog has a new post, Berlin 11 satellite conference encourages students and early stage researchers to influence shift towards Open Access. Thinking about this,  Jon Tennant (@Protohedgehog) just tweeted this important idea:  Would be nice to see a breakdown of OA vs non-OA publications based on career-stage of first author. Might be a wake-up call. It would be
<em>
 very
</em>
useful.

Looking for a project? Analyse open-access involvement by career-stage

Today sees the publication of my big paper with Mike on neural spine bifurcation, which has been in the works since last April. It’s a free download here, and as usual we put the hi-res figures and other supporting info on a sidebar page.

::: {#attachment_8001 .wp-caption .aligncenter shortcode="caption" style="width: 490px"}
[![Wedel and Taylor 2013 bifurcation Figure 4 - classes of
bifurcation](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wedel-and-taylor-2013-bifurcation-figure-4-classes-of-bifurcation.jpg?w=480&h=187){.size-full
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orig-size="2559,1000" comments-opened="1"
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image-title="Wedel and Taylor 2013 bifurcation Figure 4 – classes of bifurcation"
image-description="" image-caption=""
medium-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wedel-and-taylor-2013-bifurcation-figure-4-classes-of-bifurcation.jpg?w=300"
large-file="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wedel-and-taylor-2013-bifurcation-figure-4-classes-of-bifurcation.jpg?w=1024"
width="480" height="187"
srcset="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wedel-and-taylor-2013-bifurcation-figure-4-classes-of-bifurcation.jpg?w=480&h=187 480w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wedel-and-taylor-2013-bifurcation-figure-4-classes-of-bifurcation.jpg?w=957&h=374 957w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wedel-and-taylor-2013-bifurcation-figure-4-classes-of-bifurcation.jpg?w=150&h=59 150w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wedel-and-taylor-2013-bifurcation-figure-4-classes-of-bifurcation.jpg?w=300&h=117 300w, https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wedel-and-taylor-2013-bifurcation-figure-4-classes-of-bifurcation.jpg?w=768&h=300 768w"
sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px"}](http://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wedel-and-taylor-2013-bifurcation-figure-4-classes-of-bifurcation.jpg)

Figure 4. Cervical vertebrae of *Camarasaurus supremus* AMNH 5761
cervical series 1 in anterior view, showing different degrees of
bifurcation of the neural spine. Modified from Osborn & Mook (1921:
plate 67).
:::

Today sees the publication of my big paper with Mike on neural spine
bifurcation, which has been in the works since last April. It's a free
download
[here](http://www.palarch.nl/wp-content/Wedel-and-Taylor-2013-Neural-spine-bifurcation-in-sauropod-dinosaurs-PJVP-10-1.pdf),
and as usual we put the hi-res figures and other supporting info on a
[sidebar
page](http://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/wedel-and-taylor-2013-on-sauropod-neural-spine-bifurcation/).

**Navel-gazing about the publication process**

This paper is a departure for us, for several reasons.

For one thing, it's a beast: a little over 13,000 words, not counting
tables, figure captions, and the bibliography. I was all geared up to
talk about how it's my longest paper after the second *Sauroposeidon*
paper (Wedel et al. 2000), but that's not true. It's my longest paper,
*period* (13192 vs 12526 words), and the one with the most figures (25
vs 22).

It's the first time we've written the paper in the open, on the blog,
and then repackaged it for submission to a journal. I have several
things to say about that. First, it was more work than I expected. It
turns out that I definitely do have at least two "voices" as a writer,
and the informal voice I used for the initial run of blog posts (linked
[here](http://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/wedel-and-taylor-2013-on-sauropod-neural-spine-bifurcation/))
was not going to cut it for formal publication. So although there is
very little new material in the paper that was not in the blog posts, a
lot of the prose is new because I had to rewrite almost the whole thing.

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, last May kinda sucked,
because just about every minute that wasn't spent [eclipse
chasing](http://10minuteastronomy.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/observing-report-the-2012-annular-eclipse/)
was spent rewriting the paper. On the other hand, as Mike has repeatedly
pointed out to me, it was a pretty fast way to generate a big paper
quickly, even with the rewriting. It was just over two months from the
[first
post](http://svpow.com/2012/04/05/neural-spine-bifurcation-in-sauropods-what-we-knew-a-month-ago/)
in the destined-to-become-a-paper series on April 5, to submission on
June 14 (not June 24 as it says on the last page of the PDF), and if you
leave out the 10 days in late May that I was galavanting around Arizona,
the actual time spent working on the paper was a bit under two months.
It would be nice to be that productive all the time (it helped that we
were basically mining everything from previously published work; truly
novel work usually [needs more
time](http://svpow.com/2011/02/03/tutorial-12-how-to-find-problems-to-work-on/)
to get up and going).

::: {#attachment_8019 .wp-caption .aligncenter shortcode="caption" style="width: 490px"}
[![Wedel and Taylor 2013 bifurcation Figure 18 - Barosaurus and
Supersaurus
cervicals](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wedel-and-taylor-2013-bifurcation-figure-18-barosaurus-and-supersaurus-cervicals.jpg?w=480&h=641){.size-full
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image-title="Wedel and Taylor 2013 bifurcation Figure 18 – Barosaurus and Supersaurus cervicals"
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Figure 18. Middle cervical vertebrae of *Barosaurus* AMNH 6341 (top) and
*Supersaurus* BYU 9024 (bottom) in left lateral view, scaled to the same
centrum length. The actual centrum lengths are 850 mm and 1380 mm,
respectively. BYU 9024 is the longest single vertebra of any known
animal.
:::

You may fairly wonder why, if almost all the content was already
available on the blog, we went to the trouble of publishing it in a
journal. Especially in light of sentiments like
[this](http://svpow.com/2012/10/10/counting-beans/). For my part, it's
down to two things. First, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, what I wrote in
that post was a yell, not a thought. I never intended to stop publishing
in journals, I was just frustrated that traditional journals do so many
stupid things that actually hurt science, like rejecting papers because
of anticipated sexiness or for [other BS
reasons](http://svpow.com/2012/10/05/we-will-no-longer-provide-peer-reviews-for-royal-society-journals-until-they-adopt-honest-editorial-policies/),
not [publishing peer
reviews](http://svpow.com/2013/02/14/open-peer-review-at-peerj/), etc.
Happily, now there are [better
options](http://svpow.com/2013/02/21/how-disruptive-is-peerj/).

Second, although in a sane world the quality of an argument or
hypothesis would matter more than its mode of distribution, that's not
the world we live in. We're happy enough to cite blog posts, etc.
([they're better than pers.
comms.](http://svpow.com/2012/02/06/blog-citations-are-better-than-pers-comms/),
at least), but not everyone is, and the minimum bound of [What
Counts](http://svpow.com/category/shiny-digital-future/what-counts/) is
controlled by people at the other end of the Overton window. So, bottom
line, people are at least theoretically free to ignore stuff that is
only published on blogs or other informal venues (DML, forums, etc.). If
you want to force someone to engage with your ideas, you have to publish
them in journals (for now). So we did.

Finally, ever since Darren's [azhdarchids-were-storks
post](http://darrennaish.blogspot.com/2006/04/why-azhdarchids-were-giant-storks_03.html)
got turned into [a
paper](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0002271),
it has bothered me that there is an icon for "Blogging on Peer-Reviewed
Research" (from [ResearchBlogging.org](http://researchblogging.org/)),
but not one (that I know of) for "Blogging *Into* Peer-Reviewed
Research". If you have some graphic design chops and 10 minutes to kill,
you could do the world a favor by creating one.

**Hey, you! Want a project?**

One of the few things in the paper that is not in any of the blog posts
is the table summarizing the skeletal fusions in a bunch of famous
sauropod specimens, to show how little consistency there is:

[![Wedel and Taylor 2013 NSB Table 1 - sauropod skeletal
fusions](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/wedel-and-taylor-2013-nsb-table-1-sauropod-skeletal-fusions.jpg?w=480&h=278){.aligncenter
.size-full .wp-image-8104 loading="lazy" attachment-id="8104"
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image-title="Wedel and Taylor 2013 NSB Table 1 – sauropod skeletal fusions"
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(Yes, we know that table legends typically go above, not below; this is
just how they roll at PJVP.)

I want this to not get overlooked just because it's in a long paper on
neural spine bifurcation; as far as I'm concerned, it's the most
important part of the paper. I didn't know that these potential
ontogenetic indicators were all mutually contradictory across taxa
before I started this project. Not only is the order of skeletal fusions
inconsistent among taxa, but it might also be inconsistent among
individuals or populations, or at least that's what the variation among
the different specimens of *Apatosaurus* suggests.

This problem cries out for more attention. As we say at the end of the
paper:

> To some extent the field of sauropod paleobiology suffers from
> 'monograph tunnel vision', in which our knowledge of most taxa is
> derived from a handful of specimens described decades ago (e.g.
> *Diplodocus carnegii* CM 84/94). Recent work by McIntosh (2005),
> Upchurch et al. (2005), and Harris (2006a, b, c, 2007) is a welcome
> antidote to this malady, but several of the taxa discussed herein are
> represented by many more specimens that have not been adequately
> described or assessed. A comprehensive program to document skeletal
> fusions and body size in all known specimens of, say, *Camarasaurus*,
> or *Diplodocus*, could be undertaken for relatively little cost (other
> than travel expenses, and even these could be offset through
> collaboration) and would add immeasurably to our knowledge of sauropod
> ontogeny.

So if you're looking for a project on sauropod paleobiology and you can
get around to a bunch of museums\*, here's work that needs doing. Also,
you'll probably make lots of other publishable observations along the
way.

\* The more the better, but for Morrison taxa I would say *minimally*:
Yale, AMNH, Carnegie, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Field Museum,
Dinosaur National Monument, BYU, University of Utah, and University of
Wyoming, plus Smithsonian, University of Kansas, OMNH, Denver Museum,
Wyoming Dinosaur Center, and a few others if you can swing it. Oh, and
*Diplodocus hayi* down in Houston. Check John Foster's and Jack
McIntosh's publications for lists of specimens--there are a LOT more out
there than most people are familiar with.

**References**

- [Wedel, M.J., R.L. Cifelli and R.K. Sanders.  2000.  Osteology,
  paleobiology, and relationships of the sauropod
  dinosaur *Sauroposeidon*.  *Acta Palaeontologica Polonica* 45(4):
  343-388.](http://sauroposeidon.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/wedel-et-al-2000-sauroposeidon-in-acta.pdf)
- [Wedel, M.J., and Taylor, M.P. 2013. Neural spine bifurcation in
  sauropod dinosaurs of the Morrison Formation: ontogenetic and
  phylogenetic implications. Palarch's Journal of Vertebrate
  Palaeontology 10(1):
  1-34.](http://www.palarch.nl/wp-content/Wedel-and-Taylor-2013-Neural-spine-bifurcation-in-sauropod-dinosaurs-PJVP-10-1.pdf)


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Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

Sacral pneumatization in sauropods was complex

Does anyone want a project? How can we understand sauropod neck cartilage better?

Did sauropod necks have intervertebral discs?

Looking for a project? Analyse open-access involvement by career-stage

Our neural spine bifurcation paper is out