I don’t remember now when I first noticed bifurcated cervical ribs in apatosaurines. I imagine 2016 at the latest, because on our Sauropocalypse that year Mike and I saw examples at both BYU and Dinosaur Journey.

Here are some cervical ribs of sauropods that show a spectrum of morphologies, from a low dorsal process that makes an obtuse angle with the shaft of the rib in Dicraeosaurus (upper right), to one that makes a right angle in Brontosaurus (center), to a prominent spike of bone in Apatosaurus (bottom left), to a […]

A few sauropods have bifurcated cervical ribs. The most dramatic example that I know of is the turiasaur Moabosaurus (Britt et al. 2017). Mike and I got to see that material on the Sauropocalypse back in 2016, which is how we got the photo above.

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Brian Curtice and Colin Boisvert are presenting our talk on this project at 2:00 pm MDT this afternoon, at the 14th Symposium on Mesozoic Terrestrial Ecosystems and Biota (MTE14) in Salt Lake City, and the related paper is in the MTE14 volume in The Anatomical Record.

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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/”

I was googling around some photos, confirming to myself that turtles don’t have cervical ribs, when I stumbled across this monstrosity (and when I use that word I mean it as a compliment): {.size-full .wp-image-20555 aria-describedby=“caption-attachment-20555” loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“20555” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2022/12/07/the-cylindrical-zygapophyses-of-trionyx-spinifera/trionyx_spinifera_1496_std/”

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”