[This post received first place in the 2024 Blog Extravaganza at Adam Mastroianni’s Experimental History. Many thanks, Adam!] I first had this thought in 2019, and I started this draft in early 2020, but…you know how that particular story turned out. I’m picking it back up again now because I’ve had the titular point reinforced on several trips and projects over the past couple of years.

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Something cool came in the mail today: a fossil tooth of a great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias. The root is a bit eroded, but the enamel-covered crown is in great shape, and it’s almost exactly the same size as my cast tooth from a modern great white. I got this for a couple of reasons.

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When I visited Dinosaur National Monument in October with Brian Engh and Yara Haridy, we spent a decent amount of time checking out DNM 28, a skull and associated bits of Camarasaurus . In particular, I got some shots of the axis (the second cervical vertebra behind the head), and it got me thinking about pneumaticity in this unusual element.

Unworn: {.size-large .wp-image-16745 .aligncenter loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“16745” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2019/11/02/worn-and-unworn-camarasaurus-teeth-in-the-collections-at-dinosaur-national-monument/dino-collections-unworn-camarasaurus-tooth/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/dino-collections-unworn-camarasaurus-tooth.jpg” orig-size=“3200,2400” comments-opened=“1”

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No time right now for me to dig into the interesting and important discussion on how we should orient vertebrae (here and here so far) – that will be coming soon. In the meantime, here’s something else.