Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the Humboldt bone-room … hot on the heels of Part 1: Spinoparapophyseal Laminae!, comes another dose of terror thanks to everyone’s favourite mid-to-posterior brachiosaurid dorsal vertebra, HMN SII:D8. First, here is a pretty picture of the whole vertebra in right lateral view: And here is the same bone in the same view, as figured by Janensch (1950:fig.

In the spirit of Your neck is pathetic and Your torso is also pretty lame, I note that your sacrum is negligible: We have here the sacrum of the Haplocanthosaurus priscus holotype CM 572, in ventral view with the ilia still in place (so that the slightly hourglass-shaped dark regions you see on either side are the acetabular regions of the ilia, facing downwards). To the right is the sacrum of a good-sized adult male human such as my

Ventral, to be precise. Here are the first few cervicals of Cetiosaurus oxoniensis , from the mounted skeleton in the Leicester City Museum. A more typical lateral view is shown below. Forget about the skull, it’s plastersaurus. We tend to think of vertebrae as cylinders with weird bits hanging off, and in most mammals that’s true. (Incidentally, the next time you eat a t-bone steak, have a look at the bone.