UPDATE (from Matt): I also bring good news … and bad news. The good news is that the entire dinosaur issue of Anatomical Record is open access after all. So this post is mainly of historical interest now, and you should get on over to the page for this issue and download all the free dinosaurian goodness.

{.aligncenter .size-full .wp-image-1765 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“1765” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2009/09/02/how-big-was-alamosaurus/alamosaurus-skeleton-reference-480/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/alamosaurus-skeleton-reference-480.jpg” orig-size=“480,295” comments-opened=“1”

We really should have covered this ages ago …  Here we are, blithering on about brachiosaurids and diplodocoids and all, and we’ve never really spelled out what these terms mean.  Sorry! The family tree of a group of animals (or plants, or fungi, or what have you) is called its phylogeny.  The science of figuring out a phylogeny is called systematics.

{.aligncenter .size-full .wp-image-1243 attachment-id=“1243” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2009/08/02/little-big-the-reveal/wnv-1/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/wnv-1.jpg” orig-size=“480,303” comments-opened=“1” image-meta=“{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":""}” image-title=“WNV-1” image-description=““

{.aligncenter .size-full .wp-image-1871 loading=“lazy” attachment-id=“1871” permalink=“http://svpow.com/2009/07/18/nh-46870-strikes-back/condrosteo_scan/” orig-file=“https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/condrosteo_scan.png” orig-size=“1518,843” comments-opened=“1” image-meta=“{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":""}”

It’s no secret – at least, not if you’re a regular SV-POW!

This is corn on the cob: This is a shish kebab: Most tetrapods are like shish kebabs: a whole lot of meat stuck on a proportionally tiny skeleton.

Sorry to keep dumping all these off-topic thoughts on you all, but I got an email from Matt today in which he suggested that there should be some system of giving people credit for particularly insightful blog comments.  (This came up for the obvious reason that SV-POW! readers tend to leave unusually brilliant comments, as well as having excellent reading taste and being remarkably good looking.)

First off, thanks to everyone for reading, commenting on, and discussing the previous post. Seeing the diversity of opinions expressed has been interesting and gratifying for us, and we’ve learned a lot from you about how the blogosphere is changing science already. My own thoughts follow, Mike chimes in at the end, and Darren will probably have something to add soon, too.

Here at SV-POW! Towers, we often like to play Spot The T. rex — a simple drinking game that can be played whenever you have supply of palaeontology-related news reports.  Each player in turn takes a report off the stack, and if T. rex is mentioned anywhere in the report, the player drinks.