A while back, Ben Miller reminded me that when I posted about the old Yale “ Brontosaurus ” skull, I promised: So how did the YPM come to make such a monstrosity? What was it based on? Tune in next time for the surprising details! I told him at the time that I’d soon get around to writing a post. But before I did, he wrote a post on this himself: Bully for Camarasaurus . And it’s excellent.

We all remember Upchurch and Martin’s (2002) description of the Rutland Cetiosaurus , which remains by some distance the best British sauropod specimen in the literature; and the same authors’ (2003) survey of the genus Cetiosaurus . They concluded that nearly all of its many named species are either nomen dubia or misassigned, and that only C . oxoniensis is a valid, diagnosable species.

How can it be? All credit to the Yale Peabody Museum for having the courage to display this historically important object in their public gallery instead of hiding it in a basement. It’s the skull from the original mount of the Brontosaurus (= Apatosaurus ) excelsus holotype YPM 1980.

Last time, we took a very quick look at YPM 1910, a mounted skeleton that is the holotype of Camarasaurus (= “ Morosaurus “) lentus , in the dinosaur hall of the Yale Peabody Museum. Here’s the whole skeleton, in various views. Skip down to the bottom for the science; or just enjoy the derpiness. First, in anterior view: Here’s a more informative right anterolateral view.

Matt’s harsh-but-fair “Derp dah durr” / “Ah hurr hurr hurr” captions on his Giraffatitan skull photos reminded me that there is a sauropod with a much, much stupider head than that of Giraffatitan . Step forward YPM 1910, a mounted skeleton that is the holotype of Camarasaurus (= “ Morosaurus “) lentus , in the dinosaur hall of the Yale Peabody Museum. Full details on this specimen next time!

Another extraordinary specimen from the wonderful Oxford University Museum of Natural History: the skeleton of a goliath frog Conraua goliath , the largest extant anuran, which comfortably exceeds 30 cm and 3 kg in life: As noted by sometime SV-POW!sketeer Darren Naish over on Tetrapod Zoology , frogs have stupidly weird skeletons — surely the most derived of any tetrapod, despite their lowly, early diverging “amphibian”

Back when we were at Cambridge for the 2010 SVPCA, we saw taxidermied and skeletonised hoatzins, and were struck that the cervical skeleton was so very much longer than the neck as it appears in life — because necks lie.

Secretary bird: Matt pointed out to me something that in retrospect is obvious, though I’d never thought about it before: the eyelashes of birds are not homologous with ours, since mammals’ eyelashes are modified hairs and birds don’t have hair. Instead, their lashes are modified feathers. It would be interesting to see both kinds of eyelash under a microscope and compare.

Check this baby out: I know, I know what you’re thinking. “Enough with the vulgar overexposed skull of this beast, Taylor”, you cry: “Show us its zygapophyses!” But of course. This is from the anterior part of the tail, in right lateral view: the vertebrae that you see here are the third to seventh of those that carry chevrons.

More from my flying visit to the Harvard Museum of Natural History. I found this exhibition of bird eggs very striking. In particular, it was shocking how much bigger the elephant-bird egg is than that of the ostrich.