Welcome to our continuing coverage of the wackiness that is Xenoposeidon . I drew the ‘pneumaticity’ straw, not surprisingly, so I get to introduce the anterior and posterior views of the vertebra, which reveal some of the internal structure. But they also reveal another bit of weirdness, which is the neural canal, so let’s start there.

So, by now, most people in the known universe have heard about Xenoposeidon , know what a big deal it is, and understand its immense value and significance.

Today is an exciting day here at SV-POW! Towers, with the publication of the new dinosaur Xenoposeidon proneneukos , based on — you guessed it — a sauropod vertebra. The reference is: And what a vertebra it is! Let’s take a look: Here we see the vertebra from both sides: on the left side, we see it in left lateral aspect, and on the right, in right lateral.

Here is another beautiful but (so far) unidentifiable isolated dorsal vertebra from the Wealden Supergroup. Rather than the usual orthogonal views (anterior, posterior, lateral) this is in an oblique view: right anterolateral. This vertebra is one of two that, together, make up the specimen BMNH R90. For my own convenience I have assigned them lower-case latters so each can be referred to individually. I call this one R90a.

In the last post, Matt promised you non-brachiosaurs, sacrals and caudals. And so I bring you the gift of … brachiosaur dorsals! Feast your eyes, gloat your soul, on the last four presacral vertebrapresacral vertebrae 4-7 of the Brachiosaurus altithorax holotype FMNH P25107.  [My mistake — for some reason, I called these the last four when I originally wrote this post.

Just a quick post to feed the desire for sheer sauropodous beauty. This picture shows a single partial vertebra in six different views.

Howdy, Matt Wedel here. This is the Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week (or SV-POW! as we like to call it), and you just got a post yesterday, so what are we doing back here already? Mike and Darren and I are trying to get SV-POW! up and running as quickly and smoothly as possible, and the best way to do that is to post. And as long as we’re posting, we might as well get a little work done, too.