As we noted yesterday, the humerus of the Brachiosaurus altithorax holotype FMNH P25107 is inconveniently embedded in a plaster jacket — but it wasn’t always. That’s very strange. I have an idea about that which I’ll come to later. Anyway, although the humerus is now half in a jacket and fully inside a cabinet, we can see it from all angles thanks to the cast that’s part of the mounted skeleton outside the Field Museum.

In the comments on Matt’s post about the giant new Argentine titanosaur specimens, Ian Corfe wondered why Benson et al. (2014) estimated the circumference of the humerus of Brachiosaurus altithorax instead of just measuring it. (Aside: I can’t find that data in their paper.

Order up! {.aligncenter .size-full .wp-image-10163 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“10163” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2014/04/24/one-articulated-sauroposeidon-to-go-hold-the-perspective-distortion-with-a-side-of-stinkin-mammal/sauroposeidon-omnh-53062-articulated-right-lateral-composite-with-giraffe/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/sauroposeidon-omnh-53062-articulated-right-lateral-composite-with-giraffe.jpg”

Today (12th February) is the one-year anniversary of the first PeerJ papers! As Matt put it in an email this morning: That’s exactly right.

{.aligncenter .size-full .wp-image-8954 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“8954” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2013/09/25/sauropods-stomping-theropods-bryan-riolos-chaos-gigantes/chaos_gigantes_by_algoroth-d3ljhww/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/chaos_gigantes_by_algoroth-d3ljhww.jpg” orig-size=“900,477” comments-opened=“1”

{.aligncenter .size-full .wp-image-8887 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“8887” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2013/09/16/brian-engh-stomp-time/futalognkosaurusstompingweb/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/futalognkosaurusstompingweb.jpg” orig-size=“905,1153” comments-opened=“1”

I thought I’d done a decent job of illustrating MB.R.2180:C5 last time, but Wedel was not satisfied, demanding ventral and right-lateral views as well as the provided right lateral, anterior, posterior and dorsal.

Janensch’s (1950) paper on the vertebral column of Giraffatitan (which he called Brachiosaurus brancai , wrongly as it turns out) is in many ways a superb piece of work.

Back in 2008, Matt and I were at the Museum Für Naturkunde Berlin.

Anyone else see these images and really, REALLY want to go dissect one of these bad boys?