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Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

SV-POW! ... All sauropod vertebrae, except when we're talking about Open Access. ISSN 3033-3695
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Do you want to know how stupid my co-blogger Matt Wedel is?  Having already discussed the ostrich Struthio camelus in Wedel et al. (2000b), that total idiot went on to misspell the trivial name as “ camellus ” in Wedel and Cifelli (2005:52).  What a doofus. And do you want to know how dumb my other co-blogger Darren Naish is?

Published
Author Matt Wedel

I made this, just for the heck of it. The critters are, from left to right: OMNH 53062, the holotype of Sauroposeidon proteles , with a reconstructed skeleton grayed in; HM XV2, a fibula of Brachiosaurus brancai , which represents the largest known individual of Brachiosaurus ; HM SII, the nearly complete mounted composite skeleton of Brachiosaurus brancai in Berlin; a 20-foot-tall, world record giraffe;

Published
Author Matt Wedel

A 3D reconstruction of the paranasal sinuses in a human (from Koppe et al. 1999). You also have paratympanic sinuses that pneumatize the mastoid process of the temporal bone (feel for an inferiorly-directed, thumb-size protuberance right behind each ear). An x-ray of a pig skull, from here. Can you see the outline of the brain-shaped endocranial cavity? How about in this x-ray of a rhino skull? Image courtesy of Kent Sanders.

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We warned you that the Awesome was coming … now it’s here.  The first installment of Awesome, anyway, and there’s plenty more to come. Matt and I have just returned from a nine-day trip to Germany that was pretty much Heaven-on-Earth for us.  The first three days were spent in Bonn, at the first open workshop of the DFG-funded Biology of the sauropod dinosaurs: the evolution of gigantism project.

Published
Author Matt Wedel

You know, we have not done what we intended with this blog. We intended to post pretty pictures of sauropod vertebrae, sketch a few lines of text a la our inspiration, and call it good. But not one of us is capable of shutting up –me least of all–so we sit down to write 6 lines and end up writing 60 or 600. Well, not this time.