Western University of Health Sciences

Matt Wedel

Trying two new things this morning: grilling a turkey, and live-blogging on SV-POW! I like to grill. Steak, chicken, kebabs, yams, pineapple, bananas–as long as it’s an edible solid, I’m up for it. But I’ve never grilled a turkey before. Neighbor, colleague, fellow paleontologist and grillmeister Brian Kraatz sent me his recipe, which is also posted on Facebook for the edification of the masses.

Grilling your Thanksgiving dinosaur: live-blogging the bird

Since we’re spending a few days on neck posture, I thought I’d expand on what Mike said about bunnies in the first post: in most cases, it is awfully hard to tell the angle of the cervical column when looking at a live animal. Because necks lie.

Necks lie

University of Portsmouth

Mike Taylor

Seeing the photograph in [the last
post](http://svpow.wordpress.com/2008/01/17/how-big-was-hudiesaurus/ "How big was Hudiesaurus?")
of the *Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis* cast at the Field Museum in Chicago
reminded me of a picture I've been meaning to post for a while. M.hoch,
as I like to call it (we're on familiar terms) is known primarily from
its type specimen CCG V 20401, which was nicely described and figured by
Young and Zhao in 1972. There are several pretty good quality casts of
this specimen around the world: I first saw one in the car-park of the
Copenhagen Geological Museum, and Chicago was the third time I saw it
(and by far the best due to the excellent sight-lines from the balcony,
lighting and help from the museum staff) .

The second time I saw a cast of this specimen it was actually the same
one that I'd seen in Copenhagen: it was owned by the Homogea Museum in
Trzic, Slovenia, and its loan to Copenhagen had expired. By happy
coincidence my day-job took me to Slovenia, only 40 km or so from Trzic,
so on a spare day I took a taxi to the museum where I was shown to the
M.hoch cast.

Remember that bit in *The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy* where
Arthur Dent is told that the plans for demolishing his house have been
on display at the council office for six months? In fact, let me quote:

> <div>
>
> ["The notice was posted at the office, sir."  
> "Your 'office' was in a basement. I had to look all over the building
> just to find it."  
> "That's where the office is located!"  
> "It was dark."  
> "The lights were out!"  
> "So were the stairs."  
> "But still, you found the notice, sir?"  
> "Oh, yes. It was quite 'clearly' posted in a locked filing cabinet in
> a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the
> leopard.\'"]{.MsgBodyText}
>
> </div>

That's how I felt when I saw the *Mamenchisaurus* cast:

[![Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis in the Basement of
Doom](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/basement-of-doom-500px.jpeg)](http://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/basement-of-doom.jpeg "Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis in the Basement of Doom")

Yes, it's in a basement. Yes, the lights were out (though, to be fair,
the stairs were not). Yes, the basement is flooded (a trick that Douglas
Adams missed) and for good measure the light you can see there, a
portable floodlight, is powered by an extension lead that runs through
the flooding. However, they didn't have a filing cabinet big enough, so
it was at least *on display* in the basement.

The good news is that I was able, from bits and pieces in the corner of
the basement, to assemble a scaffold from which I could view the
elevated cervicals:

![The Scaffold of
Doom!](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/scaffold-of-doom-500px.jpeg)

As you can see, it consists of a trolley frame with a piece of
decomposing and warped chipboard on top, surmounted by a stepladder.
Unfortunately, this is a pretty tall dinosaur and those cervicals are a
good 4 m off the ground, so the only way I could see the dorsal surface
was by perching right on the top rung of the ladder. I do have
photographic evidence, taken by a workman who was doing something
mysterious in the corner of the basement, although it's not great
quality --- about as good as the typical Loch Ness Monster photo:

![Mike Taylor and the Scaffold of
Doom!](https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/danger-money-500px.jpeg)

Yes, that's me, risking life and limb in the cause of sauropod
vertebrae.

Sadly the result of all this was not very useful: the very poor lighting
meant that the photos I took are low on detail, difficult to interpret,
and of little scientific value. On the positive side, it was later that
same month that I was in Chicago to see the better cast of the same
animal, so I got all the photos I needed in the end.

**Reference**

- [Young, C.C., and Zhao, X.-J. 1972. *Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis* sp.
  nov. Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology
  Monographs, A,
  8:1-30.](http://ravenel.si.edu/paleo/paleoglot/files/Young&Zhao_72.pdf)


Seeing the photograph in the last post of the
<em>
 Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis
</em>
cast at the Field Museum in Chicago reminded me of a picture I’ve been meaning to post for a while. M.hoch, as I like to call it (we’re on familiar terms) is known primarily from its type specimen CCG V 20401, which was nicely described and figured by Young and Zhao in 1972.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

Grilling your Thanksgiving dinosaur: live-blogging the bird

Necks lie

The Suboptimal Location of Mamenchisaurus