Everybody(*) knows that the turiasaurian sauropod Moabosaurus has bifurcated cervical ribs: it was all anyone was talking about back when that animal was described (Britt et al. 2017). We’ve featured the best rib here before, and here it is again: {.alignnone .size-full .wp-image-21111 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“21111”
I haven’t blogged about blogging in a while. Maybe because blogging already feels distinctly old-fashioned in the broader culture. A lot of the active discussion migrated away a long time ago, to Facebook and Twitter, and then to other social media outlets as each one in turn goes over the enshittification event horizon.
New paper out today in PeerJ: 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 This one had a long gestation.
{.size-large .wp-image-21068 .aligncenter loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“21068” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2023/07/29/mwc-5659-is-a-beautiful-apatosaurus-vertebra/apato-cervical-mwc-5659-lateral-view/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/07/apato-cervical-mwc-5659-lateral-view.jpg” orig-size=“2720,2640” comments-opened=“1”
{.aligncenter .wp-image-20834 .size-large loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“20834” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2023/03/03/an-arresting-image-of-an-apatosaur-vertebra/amnh-apato-c6-alexander-1994-plate-28/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/amnh-apato-c6-alexander-1994-plate-28.jpg” orig-size=“1694,2312” comments-opened=“1”
Some quick backstory: lots of sauropods have long, overlapping cervical ribs, like the ones shown here in Sauroposeidon (diagram from this old post): {.size-large .wp-image-10817 .aligncenter loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“10817” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2014/09/22/wheelbarrow-handles-for-vertebrae-the-cervical-rib-bundles-of-sauroposeidon-and-other-sauropods/sauroposeidon-cervical-rib-cross-sections-v3/”
Just to wash our mouths out after all the theropod-related unpleasantness yesterday: {.alignnone .size-full .wp-image-20548 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“20548” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2022/12/04/heres-that-ventral-view-apatosaur-cervical-anaglyph-you-ordered/dscn1412-1413-big-bink-apatosaur-c7-ventral-anaglyph/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/dscn1412-1413-big-bink-apatosaur-c7-ventral-anaglyph.jpeg”
I’ve been in contact recently with Matt Lamanna, Associate Curator in the Section of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History — which is obviously the best job in the world.
We’ve shown you the Apatosaurus louisae holotype mounted skeleton CM 3018 several times: shot from the hip, posing with another massive vertebrate, photographed from above, and more. Today we bring you a world first: Apatosaurus from below. Scroll and enjoy!
Here at SV-POW! Towers, we like to show you iconic mounted skeletons from unusual perspectives.