After eight consecutive posts on Xenoposeidon , I have to admit that even I am getting just a tiny bit bored of it, so I can only imagine how the rest of you feel.

For the first time in SV-POW! history, a full week has passed between successive posts — well, at least we didn’t actually fail with the “of the week” part, even if it was a close thing. It’s been a busy week, for reasons that will soon be apparent;

Figure 1. Sauroposeidon proteles , eighth cervical vertebra (top) and posterior portion of seventh cervical (bottom). Mike Taylor (left) and Matt Wedel (right) for scale.

At the risk of turning this blog into Brachiosaurus brancai 8th Cervical Picture of the Day, here’s a quick tutorial on your basic sauropod vertebral anatomy, using everyone’s favourite cervical vertebra. This picture shows the same vertebra as was photographed in the very first SV-POW! entry.

Welcome to the third SV-POW! post. Given that this is my (me = Darren Naish) first post, I cannot resist using it as another excuse to post a picture of, and talk briefly about, the wonder that is MIWG.7306, the immense* brachiosaur cervical vertebra that I and colleagues described in 2004. A series of blog articles (on Tetrapod Zoology ver 1) were previously posted on this specimen and its history, starting here.

Howdy, Matt Wedel here. This is the Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week (or SV-POW! as we like to call it), and you just got a post yesterday, so what are we doing back here already? Mike and Darren and I are trying to get SV-POW! up and running as quickly and smoothly as possible, and the best way to do that is to post. And as long as we’re posting, we might as well get a little work done, too.