As I noted in a comment on the previous post, titanosaurs have stupid cervicals. As evidence, here is as gallery of titanosaur cervicals featured previously on SV-POW!. 1. From Whassup with your segmented lamina, Uberabatitan ribeiroi ?, an anterior cervical of that very animal, from Salgado and Carvalho (2008: fig. 5). As well as the titular segmented lamina, note the ridiculous ventral positioning of the cervical rib.

You may remember this: …which I used to make this: …and then this: The middle image is just the skeleton from the top photo cut out from the background and dropped to black using ‘Levels’ in GIMP, with the chevrons scooted up to close the gap imposed by the mounting bar. The bottom image is the same thing tweaked a bit to repose the skeleton and get rid of some perspective distortion on the limbs.

Thanks to the kind offices of the folks at the Field Museum, especially Fossil Vertebrates collection manager Bill Simpson, on Wednesday I got to hop the fence and spend some quality time with FMNH PR 2209, the mounted holotype specimen of Rapetosaurus krausei . I took a tape measure with me, to get some dimensions from the mounted skeleton.

A comment by Charles Epting on the recent article about self-publication led me to check the relevant section of the draft Phylocode, which I’ve read once or twice before but not recently enough for this to have hit me with the force it ought: From Chapter II. Publication , and specifically Article 4. Publication Requirements : I am … flabbergasted, if that’s the word I want.

By now you’ve probably heard that the entire UC system is threatening to boycott the Nature Publishing Group over unsustainable business practices.* First, a few links to get you up to speed. The original letter, which was an in-house UC document that leaked (possibly deliberately, certainly understandably) and then propagated through academia like the proverbial brushfire.

The big noise on the Dinosaur Mailing List at the moment is this thread about Rob Gay’s newly self-published book Notes on Early Mesozoic Theropods , which you can buy from print-on-demand house lulu.com.

Just a quick note to let you know I (Mike) was interviewed for the Enlightenment podcast at The Twenty-First Floor, along with Dave “Archosaur Musings” Hone.  Dave’s segment is on common misconceptions about dinosaurs; long-time readers will be less than wholly astonished to learn that mine is on: sauropods. It probably won’t contain much that SV-POW!

This one’s mostly a housekeeping post, to keep you abreast of some notable developments with SV-POW!sketeers and friends. Added April 29 – I’m such a tool, forgot to mention that another awesomely niche-y blog has been unleashed on the paleo-blogosphere: March of the Fossil Penguins, by our friend and sometime sauropod-describer Dan Ksepka.