Today is a good day for sauropod science. Since we’re not getting this up until the afternoon, you’ve probably already seen that Emanuel Tschopp and colleagues have published a monstrous specimen-level phylogenetic analysis of Diplodocidae and, among other things, resurrected Brontosaurus as a valid genus.

In a recent comment, Doug wrote: If I want to be a truly educated observer of Tyrannosaurus rex mounts, what 5 things should I look for in a reconstruction to assess if it is true to our current scientific understanding? I’m not talking tail dragging/upright at this point…we are well past that I hope.

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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.

Thanks to the wonder of Osborn and Mook (1921), we have already seen multiview illustrations of the pubis and ischium of Camarasaurus . Now we bring you their Camarasaurus sacrum.

More goodness from Osborn and Mook’s (1921) gargantuan Camarasaurus monograph, again prepared largely for comparison with “ Apatosaurus “ minimus . Last time, I showed you one of O&M’s pubis illustrations.

(First of all, for anyone who’s not familiar with the plural of “pubis”, it’s spelled “pubes” but pronounced “pyoo-bees”. Stop sniggering at the back.) As Matt and I struggle to figure out the partial pubis that is one of the elements of the “ Apatosaurus ” minimus specimen AMNH 675, one of the most helpful references is Osborn and Mook’s (1921) epic monograph on Camarasaurus . It’s not that 675 particularly resembles

From the collections of the American Museum of Natural History, I give you the sacrum and fused ilia of “ Apatosaurus ” minimus AMNH 675, as correctly identified by Steve P in a comment to the previous post: {.alignnone .size-full .wp-image-6439 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“6439” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2012/06/27/apatosaurus-minimus-sacrumilia-right-lateral-view/img_0612-apatosaurus-minimus-sacrum-right-lateral/”

A couple of posts back, when Matt was talking about turtle laminae, he included a photo of me in front of the skeleton of the giant turtle Archelon . Also in that photo is the tripod I was using — if you want to call it that — a tripod of altogether startling inadequacy.

Sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up. You may recall a story from the Onion Our Dumb Century book, allegedly from 1904, about the skeleton of Satan being discovered in Wyoming.