Here’s where I thought Dave Hone’s Academics on Archosaurs series was going: Be honest: aren’t you just a little disappointed that it’s not? [The actual Tom Holtz article is here.

Since we’ve been a bit light on sauropods lately, here’s CM 11338, the juvenile Camarasaurus from Dinosaur National Monument, in Plate 15 from Gilmore’s 1925 monograph. It’s probably the nicest single sauropod skeleton ever found, and required only minor restoration and reposing for this wall mount at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The same thing in a fake antique finish suitable for printing at 8×10″ and framing.

… and that’s why we’re angry. (Note: exact percentages are made up.  But based on a true story.)

I’m very aware that I’ve been whining incessantly on this blog recently: RWA this, Elsevier that, moan whine complain.  So I’m delighted to be able to bring some good news.  Mike Keesey’s site PhyloPic.org is back up, in new and improved form, and providing free silhouettes of organisms extincts and extant.

This is the final post reviewing the Apatosaurus maquette from Sideshow Collectibles. Previous posts in the series are: Part 1: intro Part 2: the head Part 3: the neck Part 4: body, tail, limbs, base, and skull Part 5: posture Part 6: texture and color First, the objective verdict.

This is the sixth installment in a series on the Apatosaurus maquette from Sideshow Collectibles. Other posts in the series are: Part 1: intro Part 2: the head Part 3: the neck Part 4: body, tail, limbs, base, and skull Part 5: posture Part 7: verdict Texture and color deserve discussion on two levels: biological plausibility, and level of execution.

This  is the fifth in a series of posts reviewing the Apatosaurus maquette from Sideshow Collectibles. Other posts in the series are: Part 1: intro Part 2: the head Part 3: the neck Part 4: body, tail, limbs, base, and skull Part 6: texture and color Part 7: verdict There are really only a couple of interesting points to discuss for posture: the neck and the feet. The neck posture is fine.

Photo copyright Derek Bromhall, borrowed from ARKive. Let’s say you want to paint an elephant. Where will you locate your elephant, and what will it be doing? If you depict an elephant standing on a glacier at 14,000 feet, your depiction is accurate, because elephants have been caught doing that. Elephant, standing in a dunescape with no water or vegation in sight: accurate, for the same reason.

If you’re a scientist, then one of the things you need to do is prepare high-quality images for your papers.  And, especially if you’re a palaeontologist, or in some other science that involves specimens, that’s often going to mean manipulating photographs.