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All sauropod vertebrae, except when we're talking about Open Access. ISSN 3033-3695" /> <script>var _activityPubOptions = {"namespace":"wpcom\/activitypub-1.0","defaultAvatarUrl":"https:\/\/s2.wp.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/activitypub\/5.1.0\/assets\/img\/mp.jpg","enabled":{"site":true,"users":false}};</script></head> <body class="home blog customizer-styles-applied jetpack-reblog-enabled"> <div id="wrap"> <div id="header"> <h1><a href="https://svpow.com/">Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week</a></h1> <p class="description">SV-POW! … All sauropod vertebrae, except when we're talking about Open Access. ISSN 3033-3695</p> </div> <div id="content"> <div class="entry entry-1 post-21771 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-artificial-intelligence category-brachiosaurs category-brachiosaurus category-giraffatitan category-llm category-uncategorized tag-14407" id="post-21771"> <div class="entrytitle"> <h2> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/02/14/if-you-believe-in-artificial-intelligence-take-five-minutes-to-ask-it-about-stuff-you-know-well/" rel="bookmark">If you believe in “Artificial Intelligence”, take five minutes to ask it about stuff you know well</a> </h2> <h3>February 14, 2025</h3> </div> <div class="entrybody"> <p>Here’s <a href="https://sauropods.win/@mike/111935967471427403">a Mastodon thread from a year ago</a>.</p> <blockquote><p>Just a quick check on how ChatGPT’s getting on …</p> <p><strong>Me</strong>: Who reassigned the species <em>Brachiosaurus brancai</em> to its own genus, and when?</p> <p><strong>ChatGPT:</strong> The species <em>Brachiosaurus brancai</em> was reassigned to its own genus, <em>Giraffatitan</em>, by the paleontologist Michael Janensch in 1914.</p> <p><strong>Me:</strong> Dude, that is so wrong I can’t even.</p> <p><strong>ChatGPT</strong>: I apologize for the mistake in my previous response. The reassignment of <em>Brachiosaurus brancai</em> to <em>Giraffatitan brancai</em> was not done by Michael Janensch. The correct attribution goes to the paleontologist Ernst Stromer, who reclassified it in 1914.</p> <p><strong>Me:</strong> That answer is even worse. Stromer had nothing to do with the genus name <em>or</em> species name.</p> <p><strong>ChatGPT:</strong> I apologize for the confusion in my previous responses. The reassignment of <em>Brachiosaurus brancai</em> to <em>Giraffatitan brancai</em> was actually done by the paleontologist Werner Janensch, not Michael Janensch, in 1914.</p></blockquote> <p><em>sigh</em></p> <p>Regular readers will know that the actual sequence of events was:</p> <ul> <li>Riggs (1903) named the genus <em>Brachiosaurus</em> and its type species <em>Brachiosaurus altithorax</em>.</li> <li>Janensch (1914) named a second species of this genus, “<em>Brachiosaurus”</em> <em>brancai</em>.</li> <li>Paul (1988) considered the two species separate at the subgeneric level (a taxonomic level that is rarely if ever used in vertebrate palaeontology) and named the subgenus <em>Brachiosaurus</em> (<em>Giraffatitan</em>) <em>brancai</em>.</li> <li>Olshevsky (1991) used the genus-and-species combination <em>Giraffatitan brancai</em> without comment in a self-published booklet, a combinaton which was not followed by any formal publication known to me, until …</li> <li>Taylor (2009) demonstrated that numerous characters separate the two species and that <em>Giraffatitan</em> is a separate genus with type species <em>G</em>. <em>brancai</em>.</li> </ul> <p>Now, ChatGPT got <em>every single part of that</em> wrong. It left Riggs, Paul, Olshevsky and me out completely. It credited Werner Janensch for reassigning a species to a genus whose name was coined 19 years after he died. It pulled poor Ernst Stromer in for some reason. It invented “the paleontologist Michael Janensch”, who is presumably the unholy offspring of Werner Janensch and me. And in all three answers, it insisted that the reassignment was done in 1914, 74 years before the name <em>Giraffatitan</em> was coined.</p> <p>But the worst part of this is not the errors. It’s not the blithe confidence with which the false facts are recited. It’s not even the bland “I apologize for the mistake in my previous response” to be followed by more utter nonsense. It’s that <em>these incorrect answers look so plausible</em>. For a lay-person — someone who, foolishly, has not been reading this blog for the last eighteen years — the answers given here look superficially reasonable. A kid doing a homework report on <em>Brachiosaurus</em> could take these answers and weave them into the submission without even having an inkling that they’re completely wrong. And the teacher who has to mark the essay will also likely swallow them.</p> <p>Because LLMs get catastrophically wrong answers on topics I know well, I do not trust them <em>at all</em> on topics I don’t already know. And if you do trust them, I urge you to spend five minutes asking your favourite one about something you know in detail.</p> <p>Why do I <a href="https://svpow.com/2023/01/15/these-new-artificial-intelligence-programs-dont-know-what-theyre-talking-about/">keep</a> <a href="https://svpow.com/2024/10/14/more-artificial-intelligence-idiocy/">banging on</a> <a href="https://svpow.com/2024/05/23/another-day-another-catastrophic-ai-failure/">about this</a>? Because we’ve reached an especially toxic phase in the history of AI. A lot of companies have ploughed billions of dollars into the dream of being able to replace human workers with machines, and they are desperate to make us believe it’s going to work — if only so they can cash out their investments while the stocks are still high. We’re in the “pump” phase of an industry-wide pump-and-dump. It would be wise for all to beware getting suckered in.</p> <p>(<strong>Disclaimer</strong>: LLMs are useful for some classes of queries. I use them a lot to remind me of programming-language idioms, asking questions like “In Go, if I have an object satisfying the <strong>error</strong> interface, how can I determine which specific kind of error structure it is?”. They’re good for this because you can quickly determine whether the answer is correct or not, thanks to the merciless compiler. LLMs are not useless; they’re just way overhyped and misapplied.)</p> <h1>References</h1> <ul> <li>Janensch, Werner. 1914. Ubersicht uber der Wirbeltierfauna der Tendaguru-Schichten nebst einer kurzen Charakterisierung der neu aufgefuhrten Arten von Sauropoden. <em>Archiv fur Biontologie</em>, Berlin, III, <strong>1</strong>(1):81-110.</li> <li>Olshevsky, George. 1991. A Revision of the Parainfraclass Archosauria Cope, 1869, Excluding the Advanced Crocodylia. <em>Mesozoic Meanderings <a rel="tag" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://svpow.com/tag/2/">#2</a></em> (1st printing): iv + 196 pp.</li> <li>Paul, Gregory S. 1988. The brachiosaur giants of the Morrison and Tendaguru with a description of a new subgenus, <em>Giraffatitan,</em> and a comparison of the world’s largest dinosaurs. <em>Hunteria</em> <strong>2</strong>(3):1-14.</li> <li>Riggs, Elmer S. 1903. <em>Brachiosaurus altithorax</em>, the largest known dinosaur. <em>American Journal of Science</em> <strong>15</strong>(4):299-306.</li> <li>Taylor, Michael P. 2009. A re-evaluation of <em>Brachiosaurus altithorax</em> Riggs 1903 (Dinosauria, Sauropoda) and its generic separation from <em>Giraffatitan brancai</em> (Janensch 1914). <em>Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology</em> <strong>29</strong>(3):787-806.</li> </ul> <p> </p> <hr /> <p><a href="https://doi.org/10.59350/e0s96-xyg36">doi:10.59350/e0s96-xyg36</a></p> </div> <div class="entrymeta"> <div class="postinfo"> <span class="postedby">Posted by Mike Taylor</span><br /> <span class="filedto">Filed in <a href="https://svpow.com/category/artificial-intelligence/" rel="category tag">Artificial intelligence</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/brachiosaurs/" rel="category tag">brachiosaurids</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/brachiosaurs/brachiosaurus/" rel="category tag">Brachiosaurus</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/brachiosaurs/giraffatitan/" rel="category tag">Giraffatitan</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/artificial-intelligence/llm/" rel="category tag">LLM</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/uncategorized/" rel="category tag">Uncategorized</a></span><br /> <span class="filedto">Tags: <a href="https://svpow.com/tag/2/" rel="tag">2</a></span><br /> </div> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/02/14/if-you-believe-in-artificial-intelligence-take-five-minutes-to-ask-it-about-stuff-you-know-well/#comments" class="commentslink" >11 Comments »</a> </div> </div> <div class="commentsblock"> </div> <div class="entry entry-2 post-23316 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-stinkin-invertebrates" id="post-23316"> <div class="entrytitle"> <h2> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/02/11/dear-royal-society-please-stop-lending-legitimacy-to-elon-musk/" rel="bookmark">Dear Royal Society: please stop lending legitimacy to Elon Musk</a> </h2> <h3>February 11, 2025</h3> </div> <div class="entrybody"> <p>I’ll be sending this letter to the Royal Society, but I also want it out there in public, because I hope that more people will follow the lead set by <a href="https://deevybee.blogspot.com/2024/11/why-i-have-resigned-from-royal-society.html">Dorothy Bishop</a> and <a href="https://occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2025/02/11/open-letter-president-royal-society-stand-up-values/">Stephen Curry</a> in putting pressure on the Royal Society to grow a backbone.</p> <hr /> <p>Dear Royal Society of London,</p> <p>You exist to support the advancement of science. Your ability to do this effectively is largely due to the respect your society is held in, due to its long history and numerous eminent Fellows.</p> <p>In 2018, Elon Musk was elected a Fellow of the Society, not due to any scientific achievements of his own but due to his financial involvement with the achievements of others. At the time, his fellowship was questionable but understandable.</p> <p>Since then, Musk’s behaviour in every field has been the antithesis of that described by the Society’s Code of Conduct: “selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership”. I surely do not need to outline the ways in which his exploitative and malicious behaviour has egregiously and repeatedly contravened these standards.</p> <p>Now Musk is an influential member of a US presidential administration that is actively impeding the progress of science on a scale not seen since the darkest days of the USSR, through censorship, catastrophic defunding, dismantling of infrastructure, and withdrawal from international coalitions. Added to this, his vindictive personal behaviour in targeting individuals contravenes every standard of decency.</p> <p>At present, the Royal Society is seen to be standing behind Musk, its Fellow, effectively cheering him on. This cannot stand. The reputation of the society, carefully built across 365 years, is at stake. No-one can respect a society that retains Musk as a Fellow. The resignation of Dorothy Bishop, in protest at Musk’s continuing fellowship, should have sent waves of shame through the Society. That it has not meaningfully responded to her resignation should be a cause of further shame.</p> <p>The choice now facing the Society is stark: retain the goodwill of a billionaire; or retain the respect of the scientific community. It is not possible to do both.</p> <p>Yours with all due respect,</p> <p>Dr. Michael P. Taylor<br /> University of Bristol, UK.<br /> dino@miketaylor.org.uk</p> <p> </p> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/pxl_20250212_125529445-letter-to-royal-society.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="23330" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2025/02/11/dear-royal-society-please-stop-lending-legitimacy-to-elon-musk/pxl_20250212_125529445-letter-to-royal-society/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/pxl_20250212_125529445-letter-to-royal-society.jpg" data-orig-size="1500,2000" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"Pixel 3a","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1739364929","copyright":"","focal_length":"4.44","iso":"451","shutter_speed":"0.03","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"51.855952777778","longitude":"-2.5411805555556"}" data-image-title="PXL_20250212_125529445–letter-to-royal-society" data-image-description="<p>Photograph of the physical letter that I sent to the Society, with the same content as this post.</p> " data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/pxl_20250212_125529445-letter-to-royal-society.jpg?w=225" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/pxl_20250212_125529445-letter-to-royal-society.jpg?w=480" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-23330" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/pxl_20250212_125529445-letter-to-royal-society.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="640" /></a></p> <p> </p> <hr /> <p><a href="https://doi.org/10.59350/x69x0-97j40">doi:10.59350/x69x0-97j40</a></p> </div> <div class="entrymeta"> <div class="postinfo"> <span class="postedby">Posted by Mike Taylor</span><br /> <span class="filedto">Filed in <a href="https://svpow.com/category/stinkin-every-thing-thats-not-a-sauropod/stinkin-invertebrates/" rel="category tag">stinkin' invertebrates</a></span><br /> </div> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/02/11/dear-royal-society-please-stop-lending-legitimacy-to-elon-musk/#comments" class="commentslink" >20 Comments »</a> </div> </div> <div class="commentsblock"> </div> <div class="entry entry-3 post-23232 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-how-the-sausage-is-made category-human-anatomy category-people-we-like category-stinkin-appendicular-elements category-stinkin-mammals" id="post-23232"> <div class="entrytitle"> <h2> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/02/04/new-paper-review-of-the-supernumerary-muscles-of-the-human-leg-and-foot/" rel="bookmark">New paper: review of the supernumerary muscles of the human leg and foot</a> </h2> <h3>February 4, 2025</h3> </div> <div class="entrybody"> <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_23300" style="width: 490px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/23-042f5.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23300" data-attachment-id="23300" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2025/02/04/new-paper-review-of-the-supernumerary-muscles-of-the-human-leg-and-foot/23-042f5/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/23-042f5.jpg" data-orig-size="1900,1376" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="23-042f5" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/23-042f5.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/23-042f5.jpg?w=480" class="wp-image-23300 size-large" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/23-042f5.jpg?w=480" alt="" width="480" height="348" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-23300" class="wp-caption-text">A truly obscure variant muscle: the tibiocalcaneus internus. Ramnani et al. (2025: fig. 5).</p></div> <p>I have a new paper out:</p> <p style="padding-left: 40px">Ramnani, A.S., Landeros, J.T., Wedel, M., Moellmer, R., Wan, S., Shofler, D.W. 2025. Supernumerary muscles in the leg and foot: A review of their types, frequency, and clinical implications. Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association 114(6): 9pp. </p> <p>Hoo boy, this one has been a saga from almost the moment it was conceived. And in fact, the project we originally conceived was very different from the one that finally made it to print. Indulge me in a little trip down memory lane…</p> <p>Anushka Ramnani and Jessica Landeros were first-year podiatry students at Western University of Health Sciences in the fall of 2019. They were interested in anatomical variation, and together we hatched a plan to survey the cadavers in the anatomy lab for all of the variant and supernumerary muscles in the lower leg and foot. (Emphasis on <em>leg and foot</em> together — we were looking for variant muscles that crossed the ankle joint, as opposed to intrinsic foot muscles.) We were going to start in the summer of 2020 with the donor cadavers in the summer anatomy program, and continue with the larger sample of cadavers in the fall of 2020 and the spring of 2021. Anushka and Jessica applied for a summer research fellowship, and got one. It was awarded in the spring of 2020.</p> <p>You can guess what happened next: no research in the anatomy lab in the summer of 2020, or in the fall, or in the spring of 2021, because of the COVID lockdown. </p> <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_23298" style="width: 490px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ramnani-et-al-2021-apma-poster.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23298" data-attachment-id="23298" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2025/02/04/new-paper-review-of-the-supernumerary-muscles-of-the-human-leg-and-foot/ramnani-et-al-2021-apma-poster/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ramnani-et-al-2021-apma-poster.jpg" data-orig-size="4032,3024" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"1.8","credit":"","camera":"iPhone 7","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1627738853","copyright":"","focal_length":"3.99","iso":"25","shutter_speed":"0.025","title":"","orientation":"1","latitude":"39.818591666667","longitude":"-104.74890833333"}" data-image-title="Ramnani et al 2021 APMA poster" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ramnani-et-al-2021-apma-poster.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ramnani-et-al-2021-apma-poster.jpg?w=480" class="wp-image-23298 size-large" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ramnani-et-al-2021-apma-poster.jpg?w=480" alt="" width="480" height="360" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-23298" class="wp-caption-text">Jessica Landeros (left) and Anushka Ramnani (right) presenting their work at the 2021 APMA meeting (“The National”) in Denver.</p></div> <p>Anushka and Jessica were not deterred. They made a very sharp pivot, which I thought was impressive at the time, and still think is impressive. Since they couldn’t survey the variant muscles of the leg in the lab, they’d survey them in the literature, and write a review paper. Crucially, although there are a host of papers on individual variant muscles, and they are all covered in textbooks like <em>Sarrafian’s Anatomy of the Foot and Ankle</em>, there wasn’t an up-to-date, accessible paper that pulled all the common variants together in one place. Anushka and Jessica decided to compile a paper that would serve as a field guide to supernumerary muscles in the leg and foot, one that would be useful not just for doctors of podiatric medicine but also for orthopedic surgeons, physical therapists, family practice docs — anyone who might need to include variant muscles in their differential diagnosis or care plan.</p> <p>Getting the paper written, submitted, and revised took a while, because <a href="https://svpow.com/2024/09/07/were-not-going-to-run-out-of-new-anatomy-anytime-soon/">med students and anatomy professors are busy</a>. Along the way, Anushka and Jessica presented their preliminary results at the 2021 summer conference of the American Podiatric Medical Association in Denver. The paper was finally accepted at JAPMA in May…of 2023. Then for 18 months we waited for proofs. They finally came at the end of November last year, and the paper is finally out now as an advance online publication. It’s been quite a ride, but I’m proud of the paper, proud of Anushka and Jessica, and happy to have it out.</p> <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_23296" style="width: 442px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/david-shofler.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23296" data-attachment-id="23296" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2025/02/04/new-paper-review-of-the-supernumerary-muscles-of-the-human-leg-and-foot/david-shofler/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/david-shofler.jpg" data-orig-size="432,264" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="David Shofler" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/david-shofler.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/david-shofler.jpg?w=432" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-23296 size-full" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/david-shofler.jpg" alt="" width="432" height="264" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-23296" class="wp-caption-text">The late David Shofler, my friend and coauthor. That smile was almost always present, and infectious. Photo from his obituary in the Claremont Courier (<a href="https://claremont-courier.com/obituaries/david-shofler-23980/">link</a>).</p></div> <p>The paper benefited greatly from the input of three of my DPM colleagues who joined us as authors: Rebecca Moellmer, Stephen Wan, and the late David Shofler. David Shofler was a friend as well as a colleague, and we’d been coauthors on my first human anatomy paper (Penera et al. 2014). He passed unexpectedly, and far too young, on May 10, 2021, of a heart attack. All of us at WesternU were still reeling from his loss when <a href="https://svpow.com/2022/03/31/new-book-chapter-challenges-of-studying-dental-cementum-in-deciduous-teeth/">my wife Vicki passed away</a> five days later, also a parent, also in her 40s, also of a heart attack. David had an agile mind and he was a straight-up MacGyver when it came to thinking up clever, tractable research projects for students. He was also one of the most easygoing and approachable people I’ve ever met. I miss him, and it is especially satisfying — and more than a little bittersweet — to have helped shepherd one more collaboration with him into print.</p> <h2>References</h2> <ul> <li>Kelikian, A.S. (Ed.). 2011. <em>Sarrafian’s Anatomy of the Foot and Ankle: Descriptive, Topographic, Functional. 3rd Ed</em>. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. </li> <li><a href="https://sauroposeidon.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/penera-et-al-2014-ankle-syndesmotic-fixation-advance-online-version.pdf">Penera, K., Manji, K., Wedel, M., Shofler, D., and Labovitz, J. 2014. Ankle syndesmotic fixation using two screws: risk of injury to the perforating branch of the peroneal artery. The Journal of Foot and Ankle Surgery 53(5):534-8.</a></li> <li>R<a href="https://sauroposeidon.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/ramnani-et-al-2024-supernumerary-muscles-in-the-leg-and-foot-advance-online-version.pdf">amnani, A.S., Landeros, J.T., Wedel, M., Moellmer, R., Wan, S., Shofler, D.W. 2025. Supernumerary muscles in the leg and foot: A review of their types, frequency, and clinical implications. Journal of the American Podiatric Medical Association 114(6): 9pp.</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="entrymeta"> <div class="postinfo"> <span class="postedby">Posted by Matt Wedel</span><br /> <span class="filedto">Filed in <a href="https://svpow.com/category/how-the-sausage-is-made/" rel="category tag">how the sausage is made</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/human-anatomy/" rel="category tag">human anatomy</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/stinkin-mammals/people-we-like/" rel="category tag">People we like</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/stinkin-appendicular-elements/" rel="category tag">stinkin' appendicular elements</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/stinkin-mammals/" rel="category tag">stinkin' mammals</a></span><br /> </div> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/02/04/new-paper-review-of-the-supernumerary-muscles-of-the-human-leg-and-foot/#comments" class="commentslink" >1 Comment »</a> </div> </div> <div class="commentsblock"> </div> <div class="entry entry-4 post-23213 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-haplocanthosaurus" id="post-23213"> <div class="entrytitle"> <h2> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/01/29/new-paper-out-today-boisvert-et-al-2025-on-all-the-haplos/" rel="bookmark">New paper out today: Boisvert et al. (2025) on all the Haplos</a> </h2> <h3>January 29, 2025</h3> </div> <div class="entrybody"> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/boisvert-et-al-2025-haplo-census-cover.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="23233" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2025/01/29/new-paper-out-today-boisvert-et-al-2025-on-all-the-haplos/boisvert-et-al-2025-haplo-census-cover/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/boisvert-et-al-2025-haplo-census-cover.jpg" data-orig-size="1271,1646" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Boisvert et al 2025 Haplo census cover" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/boisvert-et-al-2025-haplo-census-cover.jpg?w=232" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/boisvert-et-al-2025-haplo-census-cover.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="aligncenter wp-image-23233 size-large" style="border: 1px solid #000000" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/boisvert-et-al-2025-haplo-census-cover.jpg?w=480" alt="" width="480" height="622" /></a></p> <p>New paper out today, in Geology of the Intermountain West (<a href="https://giw.utahgeology.org/giw/index.php/GIW/article/view/150">free at this link</a>):</p> <p style="padding-left: 40px">Boisvert, Colin, Bivens, Gunnar, Curtice, Brian, Wilhite, Ray, and Wedel, Mathew. 2025. Census of currently known specimens of the Late Jurassic sauropod <em>Haplocanthosaurus</em> from the Morrison Formation, USA. Geology of the Intermountain West 12:1-23. doi: 10.31711/giw.v12.pp1-23.</p> <p>This one was born while the same crew was working on the Dry Mesa Haplo paper (Boisvert et al. 2024). We realized that there were more Haplos out there than any of us had individually realized, and it would sure be handy to have the pertinent information on all of them collected in one place. So the “all the Haplos” project became one of Colin’s talks at NAPC last year. Then last June, Colin, Brian, Ray, and I had a few days in the Salt Lake/Provo area, and Gunnar Bivens joined us. In addition to being a talented artist — he did all the skeletal recons in the new paper — Gunnar also has a fearsome command of the literature and an encyclopedic memory for specimen numbers. Pretty soon he’d contributed enough to the project that it was only fair to bring him on as an author. Jun-Hyeok Jang did the life restoration for the cover.</p> <p>This one’s pretty straightforward — it does what it says on the tin — but I’m super proud of it and very, very happy to have it done and out. They say to write the stuff you want to read, and I’m going to have a printed and bound copy of this paper sitting on the shelf over my desk as soon as it can be decently arranged. I <em>needed</em> this paper to exist, and now it does. I hope y’all find it useful, too.</p> <h2>References</h2> <ul> <li><a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/ar.25520">Boisvert, Colin, Curtice, Brian, Wedel, Mathew, & Wilhite, Ray. 2024. Description of a new specimen of <em>Haplocanthosaurus</em> from the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry. The Anatomical Record, 1–19. http://doi.org/10.1002/ar.25520</a></li> <li><a href="https://giw.utahgeology.org/giw/index.php/GIW/article/view/150">Boisvert, Colin, Bivens, Gunnar, Curtice, Brian, Wilhite, Ray, and Wedel, Mathew. 2025. Census of currently known specimens of the Late Jurassic sauropod <em>Haplocanthosaurus</em> from the Morrison Formation, USA. Geology of the Intermountain West 12:1-23. doi: 10.31711/giw.v12.pp1-23.</a></li> </ul> <p> </p> <hr /> <p><a href="https://doi.org/10.59350/f008n-5pz23">doi:10.59350/f008n-5pz23</a></p> </div> <div class="entrymeta"> <div class="postinfo"> <span class="postedby">Posted by Matt Wedel</span><br /> <span class="filedto">Filed in <a href="https://svpow.com/category/haplocanthosaurus/" rel="category tag">Haplocanthosaurus</a></span><br /> </div> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/01/29/new-paper-out-today-boisvert-et-al-2025-on-all-the-haplos/#comments" class="commentslink" >29 Comments »</a> </div> </div> <div class="commentsblock"> </div> <div class="entry entry-5 post-23181 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-femur category-papers-everyone-should-read category-stinkin-appendicular-elements category-stinkin-mammals category-wolves" id="post-23181"> <div class="entrytitle"> <h2> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/01/26/a-great-paper-scott-et-al-2015-on-a-traumatically-amputated-timber-wolf-femur/" rel="bookmark">A great paper: Scott et al. (2015) on a traumatically amputated timber wolf femur</a> </h2> <h3>January 26, 2025</h3> </div> <div class="entrybody"> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/traumatically-amputated-wolf-femur-scott-et-al-2015-fig-2.png"><img data-attachment-id="23221" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2025/01/26/a-great-paper-scott-et-al-2015-on-a-traumatically-amputated-timber-wolf-femur/traumatically-amputated-wolf-femur-scott-et-al-2015-fig-2/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/traumatically-amputated-wolf-femur-scott-et-al-2015-fig-2.png" data-orig-size="753,755" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Traumatically amputated wolf femur Scott et al 2015 fig 2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/traumatically-amputated-wolf-femur-scott-et-al-2015-fig-2.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/traumatically-amputated-wolf-femur-scott-et-al-2015-fig-2.png?w=480" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-23221 aligncenter" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/traumatically-amputated-wolf-femur-scott-et-al-2015-fig-2.png?w=480" alt="" width="480" height="481" /></a></p> <p>Jessie Atterholt and I are helping one of our students write up a pathological dinosaur bone (you’ll definitely hear more about this in time), and we needed a good example paper for our student to use as a model. We chose several, but for me the standout was Scott et al. (2015), and that’s the one I’m focusing on here.</p> <p>The short, short version is that they found a partial timber wolf femur from the La Brea tar pits that was sheared off near the proximal end and healed. The healing demonstrates that the animal survived whatever violent event tore off the rest of the hindlimb. There’s no sign of a pseudarthrosis, so although it’s not impossible that the rest of the limb was there and just hanging uselessly, we can be sure that the animal wasn’t bearing any weight on it and was effectively tripodal. Maybe it was a loner that managed to hunt and scavenge enough to stay alive long enough to heal, but maybe its pack either helped supply it with food or at least tolerated its presence.</p> <p>I’m tempted to go down a rabbit hole telling stories about the three-legged dogs I’ve known — and one two-legged dog that was amazingly fast (one front leg, one hind, and it could run much better than it could walk). Instead, my one short digression is going to be about severed arteries. “If something ripped this wolf’s leg off, why didn’t it bleed out?” you might ask. The answer is that arteries that are completely severed in amputation injuries will often clamp shut on their own. I don’t know how much has been written about this, but I’ve confirmed it with both veterinarians and trauma surgeons. So remember, folks, it’s better to get a major artery severed completely than to simply have it torn open.</p> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/the-more-you-know.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="23219" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2025/01/26/a-great-paper-scott-et-al-2015-on-a-traumatically-amputated-timber-wolf-femur/the-more-you-know/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/the-more-you-know.jpg" data-orig-size="800,450" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="the more you know" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/the-more-you-know.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/the-more-you-know.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-23219 aligncenter" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/the-more-you-know.jpg?w=480" alt="" width="480" height="270" /></a></p> <p>ANYWAY, I love this paper. It is not lacking for information, it’s just concise and efficient. Four pages, two figures (figure 1 is the pathological specimen in anterior and posterior views), a few refs, boom, done. I realize that not every study can be done and dusted in four pages, but I’ll bet that a lot more of them could be done in four than are written that way, my own included.</p> <p>Scott et al. (2015) is free at the link below — check it out.</p> <h2>Reference</h2> <p>Scott, E., Rega, E., Scott, K., Bennett, B. and Sumida, S., 2015. A pathological timber wolf (<em>Canis lupus</em>) femur from Rancho La Brea indicates extended survival after traumatic amputation injury. Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Science Series, 42, pp.33-36. (link: <a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/scott-et-al-2015-traumatic-amputation-in-a-la-brea-timber-wolf.pdf">Scott et al 2015 traumatic amputation in a La Brea timber wolf</a>)</p> <p> </p> <hr /> <p><a href="https://doi.org/10.59350/px45w-py424">doi:10.59350/px45w-py424</a></p> </div> <div class="entrymeta"> <div class="postinfo"> <span class="postedby">Posted by Matt Wedel</span><br /> <span class="filedto">Filed in <a href="https://svpow.com/category/stinkin-appendicular-elements/femur/" rel="category tag">femur</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/papers-everyone-should-read/" rel="category tag">papers everyone should read</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/stinkin-appendicular-elements/" rel="category tag">stinkin' appendicular elements</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/stinkin-mammals/" rel="category tag">stinkin' mammals</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/stinkin-mammals/wolves/" rel="category tag">wolves</a></span><br /> </div> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/01/26/a-great-paper-scott-et-al-2015-on-a-traumatically-amputated-timber-wolf-femur/#comments" class="commentslink" >6 Comments »</a> </div> </div> <div class="commentsblock"> </div> <div class="entry entry-6 post-23191 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-cleveland-museum-of-natural-history category-goofy category-haplocanthosaurus category-mounts tag-tbt" id="post-23191"> <div class="entrytitle"> <h2> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/01/23/a-unique-sauropod-mount-haplocanthosaurus-delfsi-cmnh-10380/" rel="bookmark">A unique sauropod mount: <i>Haplocanthosaurus delfsi</i> CMNH 10380</a> </h2> <h3>January 23, 2025</h3> </div> <div class="entrybody"> <p>Hatcher (1903a) gave a very brief description — two pages and no illustrations — of the new sauropod <em>Haplocanthus</em>, basing it and its type species <em>H</em>. <em>priscus</em> on the adult specimen CM 572. Later that year, having been notified that the genus name was preoccupied by a fish, he renamed it <em>Haplocanthosaurus</em> in a single-paragraph note (Hatcher 1903b).</p> <p>Then in his monographic description later that same year (Hatcher 1903c), he also named a second species, <em>H</em>. <em>utterbacki</em>, based on the subadult specimen CM 879. McIntosh and Williams (1988:22) considered this to be synonymous with <em>H</em>. <em>priscus</em>, the differences noted by Hatcher being due to preparation (absence of hyposphenes) and ontogeny (fusion of sacral spines). This synonymy has been universally followed since.</p> <p>Eighty-five years after Hatcher’s three papers, McIntosh and Williams (1988) described a new species of <em>Haplocanthosaurus</em> — <em>H</em>. <em>delfsi</em> — and this one has been accepted as valid. Their paper contains a photograph of the mounted skeleton in the Cleveland Museum:</p> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/mcintoshwilliams1988-haplocanthosaurus-delfsi-fig5-mounted-skeleton.jpeg"><img data-attachment-id="23196" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2025/01/23/a-unique-sauropod-mount-haplocanthosaurus-delfsi-cmnh-10380/mcintoshwilliams1988-haplocanthosaurus-delfsi-fig5-mounted-skeleton/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/mcintoshwilliams1988-haplocanthosaurus-delfsi-fig5-mounted-skeleton.jpeg" data-orig-size="868,629" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="McIntoshWilliams1988–haplocanthosaurus-delfsi–fig5–mounted-skeleton" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/mcintoshwilliams1988-haplocanthosaurus-delfsi-fig5-mounted-skeleton.jpeg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/mcintoshwilliams1988-haplocanthosaurus-delfsi-fig5-mounted-skeleton.jpeg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-23196" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/mcintoshwilliams1988-haplocanthosaurus-delfsi-fig5-mounted-skeleton.jpeg" alt="" width="480" height="348" /></a></p> <p>What I didn’t realise until recently is that this is not how the skeleton was first exhibited at the museum. In <a href="https://www.cmnh.org/learn/science-blog/2024/12/20/seventy-years-of-happy-the-dinosaurs-tale-continues">an article about the new remount of this skeleton</a> (its tail is off the floor at last!), Emily Driehaus writes that “by 1957, the team had fully excavated the dinosaur—and it was on display in the Museum by 1961”. And the article includes this photo:</p> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/happy2.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="23199" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2025/01/23/a-unique-sauropod-mount-haplocanthosaurus-delfsi-cmnh-10380/happy2/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/happy2.jpg" data-orig-size="1599,1142" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1734520362","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="happy2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/happy2.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/happy2.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-23199" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/happy2.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="343" /></a></p> <p>I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve seen plenty of regular mounts, and I’ve seen panel mounts where the bones are laid out on the ground as they may have been when they were found. And I’ve seen photos of <a href="https://svpow.com/2014/03/01/the-case-of-the-bandy-legged-diplodocus/">the bizarre everted-elbowed <em>Diplodocus</em> in St. Petersburg</a>. But never an exhibit like this, with the rib-cage complete and articulated, but sitting on the ground with the legs splayed out.</p> <p>I wonder what the story was here? Did they get as far as building the torso, then run out of time or money? Were they trying for a possible sleeping posture? That doesn’t work at all: the femur would have been disarticulated in that posture, and the torso would need to be higher off the ground to allow space for the guts and gastralia.</p> <p>Does anyone know any more about this?</p> <h1>Update (24 January 2024)</h1> <p>In a comment below, Matt Inabinett points to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157520454357297">a Facebook post</a> containing a photo of this exhibit under construction:</p> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/99098325_10157520454367297_7489026842154762240_n-happy2.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="23209" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2025/01/23/a-unique-sauropod-mount-haplocanthosaurus-delfsi-cmnh-10380/99098325_10157520454367297_7489026842154762240_n-happy2/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/99098325_10157520454367297_7489026842154762240_n-happy2.jpg" data-orig-size="1440,1440" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="99098325_10157520454367297_7489026842154762240_n–happy2" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/99098325_10157520454367297_7489026842154762240_n-happy2.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/99098325_10157520454367297_7489026842154762240_n-happy2.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-23209" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/99098325_10157520454367297_7489026842154762240_n-happy2.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="480" /></a></p> <p>The accompanying text reads:</p> <blockquote><p><a rel="tag" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://svpow.com/tag/tbt/">#TBT</a> to the year 1959 and the mounting of our Late Jurassic sauropod, Haplocanthosaurus delfsi, nicknamed Happy! In life, this dinosaur was probably more than 72 feet long and 14 feet tall at the hips, with a weight of about 25 tons. Because of this tremendous mass, it’s anatomically impossible for a sauropod to be in this position without breaking all their joints…unless…😬🦖</p></blockquote> <p>Which could be construed as “unless killed by a theropod”, I guess, suggestion that the old mount might have been intended as a death pose.</p> <p>(Note, by the way, that the 1959 date claimed for this photo doesn’t make a good match for the statement “it was on display in the Museum by 1961” in the article I first linked.)</p> <h1>References</h1> <ul> <li>Hatcher, John B. 1903a. A new sauropod dinosaur from the Jurassic of Colorado. <em>Proceedings of the Biology Society of Washington</em> <strong>16</strong>:1–2.</li> <li>Hatcher, John B. 1903b. A new name for the dinosaur <em>Haplocanthus</em> Hatcher. <em>Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington</em> <strong>16</strong>:100.</li> <li>Hatcher, John B. 1903c. Osteology of <em>Haplocanthosaurus</em> with description of a new species, and remarks on the probable habits of the Sauropoda and the age and origin of the <em>Atlantosaurus</em> beds; additional remarks on <em>Diplodocus</em>. <em>Memoirs of the Carnegie Museum</em> <strong>2</strong>:1–75 and plates I–VI.</li> <li>McIntosh, John S, and Michael E. Williams. 1988. A new species of sauropod dinosaur, <em>Haplocanthosaurus delfsi</em> sp. nov., from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Fm. of Colorado. <em>Kirtlandia</em> <strong>43</strong>:3–26.</li> </ul> <p> </p> <hr /> <p><a href="https://doi.org/10.59350/p6vyw-s2r57">doi:10.59350/p6vyw-s2r57</a></p> <p> </p> </div> <div class="entrymeta"> <div class="postinfo"> <span class="postedby">Posted by Mike Taylor</span><br /> <span class="filedto">Filed in <a href="https://svpow.com/category/museums/cleveland-museum-of-natural-history/" rel="category tag">Cleveland Museum of Natural History</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/goofy/" rel="category tag">goofy</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/haplocanthosaurus/" rel="category tag">Haplocanthosaurus</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/mounts/" rel="category tag">mounts</a></span><br /> <span class="filedto">Tags: <a href="https://svpow.com/tag/tbt/" rel="tag">TBT</a></span><br /> </div> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/01/23/a-unique-sauropod-mount-haplocanthosaurus-delfsi-cmnh-10380/#comments" class="commentslink" >14 Comments »</a> </div> </div> <div class="commentsblock"> </div> <div class="entry entry-7 post-23148 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-caudal category-diplodocids category-navel-blogging category-pneumaticity category-tornieria" id="post-23148"> <div class="entrytitle"> <h2> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/01/16/my-constant-reader-and-staying-close-to-the-work/" rel="bookmark">My Constant Reader, and staying close to the work</a> </h2> <h3>January 16, 2025</h3> </div> <div class="entrybody"> <p><div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_23183" style="width: 490px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tornieria-caudal-on-display-lateral.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23183" data-attachment-id="23183" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2025/01/16/my-constant-reader-and-staying-close-to-the-work/tornieria-caudal-on-display-lateral/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tornieria-caudal-on-display-lateral.jpg" data-orig-size="2272,1704" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Tornieria caudal on display – lateral" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tornieria-caudal-on-display-lateral.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tornieria-caudal-on-display-lateral.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-23183 size-large" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tornieria-caudal-on-display-lateral.jpg?w=480" alt="" width="480" height="360" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-23183" class="wp-caption-text">A middle caudal vertebra of a diplodocid, presumably <em>Tornieria africana</em>, on display at the Museum fur Naturkunde Berlin, in left lateral view.</p></div></p> <p>Quick backstory: <a href="https://www.experimental-history.com/p/two-stupid-facts-that-rule-the-world">this post</a> at Adam Mastroianni’s Experimental History led me to <a href="https://nothinghuman.substack.com/p/the-tyranny-of-the-marginal-user">this post</a> at Nothing Human, and poking around there led me to another good’un: <a href="https://nothinghuman.substack.com/p/shallow-feedback-hollows-you-out">“Shallow feedback hollows you out”</a>. That post really hit for me, and it made me think about SV-POW! Especially this bit:</p> <blockquote><p>Suppose you don’t want to lose your ability to think new thoughts and see new things. What are your options?</p> <p>The best remedy is to <strong>write to the single smartest person you know who cares a lot about your topic of interest</strong>.</p></blockquote> <p>I have two thoughts about this. The first, which dovetails nicely with the thesis of that post, is that SV-POW! staying relatively small is probably a good thing. We’ve never written with the goal of growing our readership, and I think that’s kept us from being tempted by a lot of bad habits whose deleterious effects you can see play out over and over again across the whole internet. Our habit of posting on a completely irregular schedule on whatever topics we like has been doubly beneficial: it’s kept us sane (for reasons explored in <a href="https://svpow.com/2023/11/16/two-thoughts-on-blogging-thought-archives-and-bullets-dodged/">this post</a>), and it’s probably kept our readership low,* which has kept the temptation to write for marginal readers from ever getting off the ground. In case that sounds insulting or dismissive to our readers, let me clarify: we love our readers, and we’d rather have our little community of dedicated weirdos than any other set.</p> <p>(Don’t get me wrong, I like it when one of our posts goes viral, but I like it in the same sense that I like watching a comet: it’s a cool phenomenon that I feel is beyond my influence. I enjoy it, but it doesn’t affect how I conduct myself.)</p> <p>*Having written that, I wonder now if our irregular posting schedule has possibly deepened the dedication of those readers who can tolerate it — it could be a form of intermittent reinforcement, which has been implicated in gambling addiction.</p> <p>That leads to my second thought: at any given time in the 17-year history of this blog, we’ve had a small but dedicated cadre of commenters, but the makeup of that group has changed over time. This has also had a salutary effect: for every post I’ve ever written here, I could be pretty sure that at least some of the regulars would see it and comment, but the one thing of which I could be absolutely certain is that the post would be seen and read by Mike. For most posts, Mike probably cares as much or more about what I’m writing than anyone else in the world, he will absolutely call me to account if he catches any weaknesses of evidence or reasoning, and he’ll do it publicly, in our own comment section. These are all good things! As my Constant Reader, Mike’s helped enforce the good habits of mind and of writing that are the subject of that Nothing Human “Shallow feedback” post.</p> <p><div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_23185" style="width: 490px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tornieria-caudal-on-display-oblique.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23185" data-attachment-id="23185" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2025/01/16/my-constant-reader-and-staying-close-to-the-work/tornieria-caudal-on-display-oblique/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tornieria-caudal-on-display-oblique.jpg" data-orig-size="1704,2272" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Tornieria caudal on display – oblique" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tornieria-caudal-on-display-oblique.jpg?w=225" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tornieria-caudal-on-display-oblique.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-23185 size-large" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/tornieria-caudal-on-display-oblique.jpg?w=480" alt="" width="480" height="640" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-23185" class="wp-caption-text">The same <em>Tornieria</em> vertebra in dorsolateral oblique view, showing some pneumatic features on the lateral aspect of the neural spine. The pocks on the centrum are also raising my pneumaticity antennae, but I can’t be sure from my limited set of 16-year-old photos. When <em>Diplodocus</em> caudals have pneumatic features this far back in the tail, they’re more commonly on the centrum than the arch, but diverticula gonna diverticulate.</p></div></p> <p>Speaking of, I also really liked this bit from the <a href="https://nothinghuman.substack.com/p/shallow-feedback-hollows-you-out/comment/83925513">first comment</a> on that post, by Mo Nastri:</p> <blockquote><p>…the details change but the general pattern is the same. In each case the [once great] intellectual in question is years removed from not just the insights that delivered fame, but *the activities that delivered insight*.</p></blockquote> <p>To the extent that this blog has escaped enshittification, it’s probably because Mike and I are <em>not</em> removed from the activities that deliver insight. We care more about sauropod vertebrae (and <a href="https://svpow.com/things-to-make-and-do/">pig skulls</a>, etc.) than we do about clicks. And at this point, I’m confident that we always will. If we were ever in danger of click-maximizing behavior, it was probably back in the early days, and even then the risk was minimal. We love our weird little niche blog just as it is, weird and niche-y and little.</p> <p>The possibly-surprising conclusion I’m building toward is that we’ve probably made SV-POW! a better experience for our readers (minimally, in that it still exists to be read) by not caring about our readership, and by not writing to please or impress anyone other than ourselves and each other. And that in turn has kept SV-POW! viable for us as well.</p> <p>So if you’re here, great! We’re happy to have you — as an interested person, rather than a click. If you like what we’re doing, stay tuned. We’re gonna do a lot more of the same.</p> <p> </p> <hr /> <p><a href="https://doi.org/10.59350/sbt1j-ttm80">doi:10.59350/sbt1j-ttm80</a></p> </div> <div class="entrymeta"> <div class="postinfo"> <span class="postedby">Posted by Matt Wedel</span><br /> <span class="filedto">Filed in <a href="https://svpow.com/category/caudal/" rel="category tag">caudal</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/diplodocids/" rel="category tag">diplodocids</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/navel-blogging/" rel="category tag">navel blogging</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/pneumaticity/" rel="category tag">pneumaticity</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/diplodocids/tornieria/" rel="category tag">Tornieria</a></span><br /> </div> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/01/16/my-constant-reader-and-staying-close-to-the-work/#comments" class="commentslink" >11 Comments »</a> </div> </div> <div class="commentsblock"> </div> <div class="entry entry-8 post-23141 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-allosaurus category-diplodocids category-dorsal category-giant-oklahoma-apatosaurine category-stinkin-mammals category-stinkin-sv-powsketeers category-stinkin-theropods category-toys tag-5584 tag-14407 tag-14408 tag-14409" id="post-23141"> <div class="entrytitle"> <h2> <a href="https://svpow.com/2024/12/22/about-that-saurophaganax-paper/" rel="bookmark">About that <i>Saurophaganax</i> paper</a> </h2> <h3>December 22, 2024</h3> </div> <div class="entrybody"> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/allosaurus-anax-claw.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="23159" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2024/12/22/about-that-saurophaganax-paper/allosaurus-anax-claw/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/allosaurus-anax-claw.jpg" data-orig-size="2280,1824" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Allosaurus anax claw" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/allosaurus-anax-claw.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/allosaurus-anax-claw.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-23159 aligncenter" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/allosaurus-anax-claw.jpg?w=480" alt="" width="480" height="384" srcset="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/allosaurus-anax-claw.jpg?w=480 480w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/allosaurus-anax-claw.jpg?w=960 960w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/allosaurus-anax-claw.jpg?w=150 150w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/allosaurus-anax-claw.jpg?w=300 300w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/allosaurus-anax-claw.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a></p> <p>Newly out in VAMP:</p> <blockquote> <p>Danison, Andy D., Wedel, Mathew J., Barta, Daniel E., Woodward, Holly N., Flora, Holley M., Lee, Andrew H., and Snively, Eric. 2024. Chimerism of specimens referred to <em>Saurophaganax maximus</em> reveals a new species of <em>Allosaurus</em> (Dinosauria, Theropoda). Vertebrate Anatomy Morphology Palaeontology 12:81-114.</p> </blockquote> <p>Oh man, there is soooo much to say about this paper, which is a free download <a href="https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/vamp/index.php/VAMP/article/view/29404">here</a>. The short, short version is that OMNH 1123, the holotype specimen of the giant allosaurid <em>Saurophaganax maximus</em>, does not definitely belong to a theropod and may actually belong to a sauropod, and the same goes for some of the referred material, namely the atlas and chevrons. Since neither theropod nor sauropod material could be confidently assigned to <em>Saurophaganax</em>, we consider it a <em>nomen dubium</em>. That leaves a big ole pile of fossils from the Oklahoma panhandle that really do belong to a giant allosaurid, which we think is sufficiently distinct from <em>Allosaurus fragilis</em> and <em>Allosaurus jimmadseni</em> to warrant naming a new species, <em>Allosaurus anax</em>. If you want all the evidence and technical details and scientific reasoning, it’s in the paper, and some of it may make it into future blog posts. If you want to know what a weird ride this project has been, read on.</p> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-multiview-danison-et-al-2024-fig-6.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="23160" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2024/12/22/about-that-saurophaganax-paper/omnh-1123-multiview-danison-et-al-2024-fig-6/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-multiview-danison-et-al-2024-fig-6.jpg" data-orig-size="1635,1275" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="OMNH 1123 multiview Danison et al 2024 fig 6" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-multiview-danison-et-al-2024-fig-6.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-multiview-danison-et-al-2024-fig-6.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-23160 aligncenter" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-multiview-danison-et-al-2024-fig-6.jpg?w=480" alt="" width="480" height="374" srcset="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-multiview-danison-et-al-2024-fig-6.jpg?w=480 480w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-multiview-danison-et-al-2024-fig-6.jpg?w=960 960w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-multiview-danison-et-al-2024-fig-6.jpg?w=150 150w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-multiview-danison-et-al-2024-fig-6.jpg?w=300 300w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-multiview-danison-et-al-2024-fig-6.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a></p> <h1>Who even <em>are</em> you?</h1> <p>The first point I want to make is that I myself have had just about every possible conflicting thought about the identity of OMNH 1123, the <em>Saurophaganax</em> holotype. I think chronologically I’ve gone through the following stages in this order: </p> <ol> <li>thinking it belongs to a theropod, for essentially all of my life before Andy Danison contacted me and invited me onto the project;</li> <li>thinking it belongs to a sauropod, after Andy showed me how similar it is to the vertebrae of known juvenile sauropods;</li> <li>thinking it belongs to a theropod, more or less in a panic after I published <a href="https://svpow.com/2024/10/20/about-that-saurophaganax-abstract/">my last post about <em>Saurophaganax</em></a> and then worried that we were wrong and we were going to make fools of ourselves (or, more flatteringly, I made the strongest case I could for a theropod identity to stress-test our hypothesis, which an accurate description of the outcome but a lie about my motivation);</li> <li>thinking it could plausibly belong to a sauropod, after Andy countered every point I raised in my “<em>Saurophaganax</em> is a theropod after all” push with photos of the same characters in the vertebrae of juvenile sauropods, which led to me agreeing with Andy and the other authors that designating <em>Saurophaganax</em> as a <em>nomen dubium</em> was the best move — this is the point of view that is crystallized forever in the new paper.</li> </ol> <p>Also, I believe that at various points during the study the author team considered just about every possible scenario for dealing with the name <em>Saurophaganax maximus</em>, from thinking that it was a valid theropod genus and species, to thinking that it might be a valid sauropod genus and species (put a pin in that thought), to thinking that it was potentially valid but not definitively referrable to either Theropoda or Sauropoda, to realizing that if we couldn’t be certain if it was a theropod or sauropod, then no-one would be comfortable referring either theropod or sauropod material to it, which pushed us toward designating it a <em>nomen dubium</em>. We also considered a lot of potential taxonomic acts, including naming a new genus, naming a new species, or not naming the giant Oklahoma allosaurid and leaving it as <em>Allosaurus</em> sp. In the end, we decided a new species best captured our thinking about the material, and was most likely to be stable over the long run.</p> <h1>Am I sure about this?</h1> <p>Heck no! I’m the same guy who thought the <em>Saurophaganax</em> holotype was definitely a theropod, and definitely a sauropod. I remember the logic and evidence I used to reach each of those conclusions; I remember the certainty I felt in each one of those states; I remember the confidence that certainty gave me. But I think now that it was false confidence. I’m happy with the work we did in this paper, and I’m proud of it, and I think we came to the least-bad solution. But I’m sure this will not be the last word on <em>Saurophaganax</em>, and future authors may discover things we overlooked, or come back with a new perspective when and if new material of the giant Oklahoma allosaurid comes out of the ground.</p> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-1366-comparo-danison-et-al-2024-fig-8.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="23162" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2024/12/22/about-that-saurophaganax-paper/omnh-1123-1366-comparo-danison-et-al-2024-fig-8/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-1366-comparo-danison-et-al-2024-fig-8.jpg" data-orig-size="1644,1053" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="OMNH 1123-1366 comparo Danison et al 2024 fig 8" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-1366-comparo-danison-et-al-2024-fig-8.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-1366-comparo-danison-et-al-2024-fig-8.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-23162 aligncenter" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-1366-comparo-danison-et-al-2024-fig-8.jpg?w=480" alt="" width="480" height="307" srcset="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-1366-comparo-danison-et-al-2024-fig-8.jpg?w=480 480w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-1366-comparo-danison-et-al-2024-fig-8.jpg?w=960 960w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-1366-comparo-danison-et-al-2024-fig-8.jpg?w=150 150w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-1366-comparo-danison-et-al-2024-fig-8.jpg?w=300 300w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/omnh-1123-1366-comparo-danison-et-al-2024-fig-8.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a></p> <p>Here’s what gives me pause: the accessory laminae in the <em>Saurophaganax</em> holotype are pretty much dead ringers for the spinoprezyg laminae (SPRLs) in the <a href="https://svpow.com/category/diplodocids/giant-oklahoma-apatosaurine/">giant Oklahoma apatosaurine</a>. I didn’t figure that out, Andy Danison did, and it’s one of those things that has just kept growing and growing in my mind, even after the paper was finalized. No other allosaurid or allosauroid or theropod of any description that I know of has prominent bars of bone in the same place, but they’d be expected in the neural arch of a juvenile diplodocid. And at this point I think it’s bordering on special pleading to argue that the giant Oklahoma allosaurid just happens to have these bars of bone, unique among theropods, that look identical to the SPRLs of a juvenile diplodocid, in a quarry dominated by diplodocids. So as of this evening/early morning, sitting here writing this post, I’ve about talked myself back around to thinking that the <em>Saurophaganax</em> holotype belongs to a sauropod, and possibly to a juvenile of the giant Oklahoma apatosaurine. </p> <p>The most obvious argument against is that whatever OMNH 1123 is, it had strongly-up-tilted transverse processes, like <em>Haplocanthosaurus</em> and a lot of theropods (see the Discussion in Boisvert et al. 2024) and very much unlike, say, OMNH 1366 and other dorsals of adult diplodocids. But I now think this is ontogenetically plastic — the juvenile <em>Barosaurus</em> specimens described by Melstrom et al. (2016) and Hanik et al. (2017) also have strongly up-tilted transverse processes. And in case I get hit by a bus before I can explain this more fully, it’s pretty clear that the neural arch telescopes in the dorsoventral direction over the course of ontogeny, and someone should work on that, too.</p> <p>Anyway, the specter of <em>Saurophaganax</em> as a sauropod is a good segue to the next section.</p> <h1>What if we’re wrong?</h1> <p>I wrote up above about the comforting certainty of thinking that the <em>Saurophaganax</em> holotype definitely belonged to a theropod, or definitely belonged to a sauropod. I think that was in part because the intermediate idea, that OMNH 1123 could be either thing, feels inherently unstable to me. Surely someone will come along and point out some feature or combination of features that makes OMNH 1123 either definitely theropod or definitely sauropod. What then? Here are the possibilities I’ve thought of:</p> <ol> <li>OMNH 1123 definitely belongs to a theropod, and it’s diagnostic enough to hang a species name on: then it goes back to being <em>Saurophaganax maximus</em> or <em>Allosaurus maximus</em> depending on how people calibrate their genericometers, <em>Allosaurus anax</em> becomes a junior synonym, and we were just flat wrong (see our discussion of this possibility on p. 107 of the new paper).</li> <li>OMNH 1123 definitely belongs to a theropod, but it’s not diagnostic enough to hang a species name on: <em>Saurophaganax</em> remains a <em>nomen dubium</em>, just a <em>nomen dubium</em> with a home, and <em>Allosaurus anax</em> remains the valid name for the giant Oklahoma allosaurid.</li> <li>OMNH 1123 definitely belongs to a sauropod, but it’s not diagnostic enough to hang a species name on: <em>Saurophaganax</em> remains a <em>nomen dubium</em>, just a <em>nomen dubium</em> with a home (in Sauropoda or Neosauropoda this time), <em>Allosaurus anax</em> remains the valid name for the giant Oklahoma allosaurid, and the giant Oklahoma apatosaurine remains unnamed.</li> <li>OMNH 1123 definitely belongs to a sauropod, and it’s diagnostic enough to hang a species name on: well, <em>Allosaurus anax</em> remains the valid name for the giant Oklahoma allosaurid, and the implications for the giant Oklahoma apatosaurine are…real interesting.</li> </ol> <p>I don’t think <a rel="tag" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://svpow.com/tag/1/">#1</a> is likely, but I don’t think it’s impossible. Option <a rel="tag" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://svpow.com/tag/2/">#2</a> seems the least likely to me: if OMNH 1123 belongs to a theropod, surely the unprecedented accessory laminae would make it highly diagnostic — this was the cornerstone of Dan Chure’s case in his 1995 paper naming <em>Saurophaganax</em>. Option <a rel="tag" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://svpow.com/tag/3/">#3</a> seems the most likely to me, for reasons explained above; instead of accessory laminae that are unique among theropods,* the weird bars of bone in OMNH 1123 would be bog-standard SPRLs, and the specimen could plausibly belong to any of several diplodocids known from Oklahoma Morrison.</p> <p>* To be clear, the fact of <em>some</em> accessory laminae somewhere would not be unique to OMNH 1123 among theropods, but accessory laminae that mimic sauropod SPRLs would be.</p> <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_12952" style="width: 490px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/clash-of-the-titans-from-behind.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-12952" data-attachment-id="12952" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2016/02/27/giant-oklahoma-apatosaurus-mount-from-above/clash-of-the-titans-from-behind/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/clash-of-the-titans-from-behind.jpg" data-orig-size="2667,2000" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2","credit":"","camera":"Canon PowerShot S100","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1397228039","copyright":"","focal_length":"5.2","iso":"800","shutter_speed":"0.05","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="Clash of the Titans from behind" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/clash-of-the-titans-from-behind.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/clash-of-the-titans-from-behind.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-12952 size-large" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/clash-of-the-titans-from-behind.jpg?w=480" alt="" width="480" height="360" srcset="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/clash-of-the-titans-from-behind.jpg?w=480 480w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/clash-of-the-titans-from-behind.jpg?w=960 960w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/clash-of-the-titans-from-behind.jpg?w=150 150w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/clash-of-the-titans-from-behind.jpg?w=300 300w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/clash-of-the-titans-from-behind.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-12952" class="wp-caption-text">It’s not super obvious which of these critters — if either — the name <em>Saurophaganax</em> might apply to. Gotta say, I did <em>not</em> have that on my bingo card before this year. Clash of the Titans exhibit at the Sam Noble Museum (OMNH).</p></div> <p>Option <a rel="tag" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://svpow.com/tag/4/">#4</a> doesn’t seem very likely to me, but it is fascinating to consider the implications. I’ve long suspected that the giant Oklahoma apatosaurine represents a new species at least, based on a bunch of characters I’m not going into in this post, but I’ve never done the thesis-equivalent of work that it would take to persuasively demonstrate that. There is a scenario in which OMNH 1123 might be shown to belong to Apatosaurinae, in which case the combination <em>Apatosaurus maximus</em> could be on the table. Or <em>Saurophaganax</em> might become the third genus of apatosaurine alongside <em>Apatosaurus</em> and <em>Brontosaurus</em>, which seems insane, but there’s a plausible path to that result. OMNH 1123 wouldn’t be my first pick of holotype for the giant Oklahoma apatosaurine, and it could belong to a non-apatosaurine diplodociod, in which case no issues would arise for Apatosaurinae. Still, by lobbing the specimen vaguely (but not definitively!) sauropod-wards we may have created future headaches for sauropod workers in the Oklahoma Morrison. But we had to slay the dragon in front of us, not all the dragons everywhere forever.</p> <p>Also, I should note that I’m a firm nominalist: to me names are hypotheses, and we should keep them around as long as they’re useful. I’m betting that <em>Allosaurus anax</em> is going to be a better fit for the giant Oklahoma allosaurid, but time will tell. And speaking of the name… </p> <h1>The name</h1> <p>I <em>love</em> the name <em>Allosaurus anax</em>. I didn’t come up with it, Andy did. Here’s why I like it so much: </p> <ol> <li>Most importantly, although we came to different conclusions than Chure (1995) about the identity of OMNH 1123, we like and respect Dan Chure and his work, and we didn’t want the new paper to be seen as a criticism of his work. I always thought Dan showed a lot of generosity of spirit in creating the name <em>Saurophaganax maximus</em>, honoring J. Willis Stovall and salvaging Stovall’s intent with the original, defunct name <em>Saurophagus maximus</em>. Similarly, I thought it was just perfect that Andy wanted to honor Chure’s work and salvage his intent by creating the species name <em>Allosaurus anax</em>.</li> <li>The species name <em>anax</em> means “king”, and there’s a nice parallel there to <em>Tyrannosaurus rex</em>. <em>Allosaurus rex</em> would sound derivative. I’m hardly unbiased here, but to me <em>Allosaurus anax</em> sounds wicked awesome.</li> </ol> <div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_23170" style="width: 490px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-score.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23170" data-attachment-id="23170" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2024/12/22/about-that-saurophaganax-paper/snaxmas-2024-12-21-score/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-score.jpg" data-orig-size="3680,2760" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Snaxmas 2024-12-21 score" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-score.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-score.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-23170 size-large" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-score.jpg?w=480" alt="" width="480" height="360" srcset="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-score.jpg?w=480 480w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-score.jpg?w=960 960w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-score.jpg?w=150 150w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-score.jpg?w=300 300w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-score.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-23170" class="wp-caption-text">Did someone say wicked awesome?</p></div> <h1>Our reviewers</h1> <p>If I could have picked any two peer reviewers in the world for this paper, I would have picked Jerry Harris and Tom Holtz. Jerry because he’s described skeletons of an allosauroid (<em>Acrocanthosaurus</em>, in Harris (1998) and a diplodocoid (<em>Suuwassea</em>, in Harris & Dodson 2004 and numerous subsequent papers), so he has experience with all of the clades where OMNH 1123 might land, and because he consistently gives very careful, constructive reviews. Tom Holtz because he’s extremely sharp on theropod morphology but knows a thing or two about non-theropod dinosaurs, too, and also provides very thoughtful reviews. In the actual event, we got them both, and I couldn’t be happier.</p> <h1>My coauthors</h1> <p>Wow, what a great team this was to work with. I went to grad school with Andrew Lee, but we never managed to publish together before this. I’ve admired Eric Snively’s work for years but never published with him before either, ditto for Holly Woodward and Danny Barta. Funny true story: the authorship order of the paper is different from that of the SVP abstract because Holly thought that she hadn’t done enough to earn second author status, and she wanted someone else to take it. But Danny and I both felt that way about our own contributions. In the end I let them persuade me, but I still feel odd about it — so much of what I did on this paper was just get schooled by Andy Danison. At best I think I was the whetstone to his blade, but he did all the cutting.</p> <p>And that brings me at last to Andy. Good heavens, he worked his butt off on this project, in museum collections and in the literature, finding stuff I’d never noticed and making connections that had escaped me, and then explaining his findings to us with piercing clarity. It was humbling but also exhilarating, because I got to learn new stuff about sauropod vertebrae. I hope to get some of that stuff into a future post, but for now it’s way late and I must sleep. Congratulations, team! It’s been satisfying to work with each of you.</p> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-supper-colossal.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="23167" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2024/12/22/about-that-saurophaganax-paper/snaxmas-2024-12-21-supper-colossal/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-supper-colossal.jpg" data-orig-size="3024,4032" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Snaxmas 2024-12-21 supper colossal" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-supper-colossal.jpg?w=225" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-supper-colossal.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="size-large wp-image-23167 aligncenter" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-supper-colossal.jpg?w=480" alt="" width="480" height="640" srcset="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-supper-colossal.jpg?w=480 480w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-supper-colossal.jpg?w=960 960w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-supper-colossal.jpg?w=113 113w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-supper-colossal.jpg?w=225 225w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/snaxmas-2024-12-21-supper-colossal.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a></p> <h1>Parting shot: it’s beginning to look a lot like S’naxmas</h1> <p>Jenny and I were talking tonight about some of the big Jurassic Park/Jurassic World dinosaurs we have around the house, and I discovered that the Jurassic World Super Colossal <em>Allosaurus</em> was a thing. What could be better for a dinosaur-obsessed guy who just helped rename the real world super colossal <em>Allosaurus</em>? Jenny got online and found it in stock at the local Target, and I ended up racing through the store in the last five minutes before they closed to score one for myself. </p> <p>I hope to do some more blogging about this project. We didn’t go into it in a lot of detail in the paper, but some of the stuff Andy found has wild implications for Morrison sauropods. And it would be kinda cool to do a post-mortem on why I was certain that OMNH 1123 was a sauropod, then a theropod, and now maybe sauropod again. And talk about the referred specimens. And about pneumaticity. Just maybe not until after Christmas. Then again, who knows. I’m publishing on <a href="https://svpow.com/category/stinkin-theropods/">stinkin’ theropods</a> now, so anything is possible. Watch this space.</p> <p>Previous posts on <em>Saurophaganax</em>:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://svpow.com/2024/10/20/about-that-saurophaganax-abstract/">About that <em>Saurophaganax</em> abstract</a> (October 20, 2024)</li> <li><a href="https://svpow.com/2013/04/19/friday-phalanges-megaraptor-vs-saurophaganax/">Friday phalanges: <em>Megaraptor</em> vs. <em>Saurophaganax</em></a> (April 19, 2013)</li> </ul> <h2>References</h2> <ul> <li><a href="http://doi.org/10.1002/ar.25520">Boisvert, Colin, Curtice, Brian, Wedel, Mathew, & Wilhite, Ray. 2024. Description of a new specimen of <em>Haplocanthosaurus</em> from the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry. The Anatomical Record, 1–19. http://doi.org/10.1002/ar.25520</a></li> <li><a href="https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/vamp/index.php/VAMP/article/view/29404">Danison, Andy D., Wedel, Mathew J., Barta, Daniel E., Woodward, Holly N., Flora, Holley M., Lee, Andrew H., and Snively, Eric. 2024. Chimerism of specimens referred to <em>Saurophaganax maximus</em> reveals a new species of <em>Allosaurus</em> (Dinosauria, Theropoda). Vertebrate Anatomy Morphology Palaeontology 12:81-114.</a></li> <li>Hanik, Gina M., Matthew C. Lamanna and John A. Whitlock. 2017. A juvenile specimen of <i>Barosaurus </i>Marsh, 1890 (Sauropoda: Diplodocidae) from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Dinosaur National Monument, Utah, USA. Annals of Carnegie Museum 84(3):253–263.</li> <li><a href="https://econtent.unm.edu/digital/collection/bulletins/id/1053">Harris, J.D. 1998. A reanalysis of <em>Acrocanthosaurus atokensis</em>, its phylogenetic status, and paleobiogeographic implications, based on a new specimen from Texas. New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science 13:1−75.</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.app.pan.pl/archive/published/app49/app49-197.pdf">Harris, J.D. and Dodson, P., 2004. A new diplodocoid sauropod dinosaur from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation of Montana, USA. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 49(2):197-210.</a></li> <li>Melstrom, Keegan M., Michael D. D’Emic, Daniel Chure and Jeffrey A. Wilson. 2016. A juvenile sauropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic of Utah, USA, presents further evidence of an avian style air-sac system. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 36(4):e1111898. doi:10.1080/02724634.2016.1111898</li> </ul> <p> </p> <hr /> <p><a href="https://doi.org/10.59350/ffgmk-zjj78">doi:10.59350/ffgmk-zjj78</a></p> </div> <div class="entrymeta"> <div class="postinfo"> <span class="postedby">Posted by Matt Wedel</span><br /> <span class="filedto">Filed in <a href="https://svpow.com/category/stinkin-theropods/allosaurus/" rel="category tag">Allosaurus</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/diplodocids/" rel="category tag">diplodocids</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/dorsal/" rel="category tag">dorsal</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/diplodocids/giant-oklahoma-apatosaurine/" rel="category tag">Giant Oklahoma apatosaurine</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/stinkin-mammals/" rel="category tag">stinkin' mammals</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/stinkin-mammals/stinkin-sv-powsketeers/" rel="category tag">stinkin' SV-POW!sketeers</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/stinkin-theropods/" rel="category tag">stinkin' theropods</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/toys/" rel="category tag">toys</a></span><br /> <span class="filedto">Tags: <a href="https://svpow.com/tag/1/" rel="tag">1</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/tag/2/" rel="tag">2</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/tag/3/" rel="tag">3</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/tag/4/" rel="tag">4</a></span><br /> </div> <a href="https://svpow.com/2024/12/22/about-that-saurophaganax-paper/#comments" class="commentslink" >42 Comments »</a> </div> </div> <div class="commentsblock"> </div> <div class="entry entry-9 post-23009 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-necks category-stinkin-mammals" id="post-23009"> <div class="entrytitle"> <h2> <a href="https://svpow.com/2024/12/13/interesting-paper-alert-harris-2024-on-nuchal-ligaments/" rel="bookmark">Interesting paper alert: Harris (2024) on nuchal ligaments</a> </h2> <h3>December 13, 2024</h3> </div> <div class="entrybody"> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/nuchal-ligaments-harris-2024-fig1.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="23143" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2024/12/13/interesting-paper-alert-harris-2024-on-nuchal-ligaments/nuchal-ligaments-harris-2024-fig1/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/nuchal-ligaments-harris-2024-fig1.jpg" data-orig-size="1594,1646" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Nuchal ligaments – Harris 2024 fig1" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/nuchal-ligaments-harris-2024-fig1.jpg?w=291" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/nuchal-ligaments-harris-2024-fig1.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-23143" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/nuchal-ligaments-harris-2024-fig1.jpg?w=480" alt="" width="480" height="496" srcset="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/nuchal-ligaments-harris-2024-fig1.jpg?w=480 480w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/nuchal-ligaments-harris-2024-fig1.jpg?w=960 960w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/nuchal-ligaments-harris-2024-fig1.jpg?w=145 145w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/nuchal-ligaments-harris-2024-fig1.jpg?w=291 291w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/nuchal-ligaments-harris-2024-fig1.jpg?w=768 768w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a></p> <p>Check out the new paper by Jerry Harris, “What exactly is a nuchal ligament and who exactly has one?” This is one of those papers that fires on lots of cylinders for me: it’s interesting, it’s useful, and holy crap, the work that went into it is humbling. Note that of the 75 pages in the PDF, only about the first 20 are text, and the rest comprise two massive, exhaustively-researched and exhaustively-referenced tables.</p> <p>It’s free at VAMP. <a href="https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/vamp/index.php/VAMP/article/view/29405">Go read it.</a></p> <p> </p> <hr /> <p><a href="https://doi.org/10.59350/cm6jr-js673">doi:10.59350/cm6jr-js673</a></p> </div> <div class="entrymeta"> <div class="postinfo"> <span class="postedby">Posted by Matt Wedel</span><br /> <span class="filedto">Filed in <a href="https://svpow.com/category/necks/" rel="category tag">necks</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/stinkin-mammals/" rel="category tag">stinkin' mammals</a></span><br /> </div> <a href="https://svpow.com/2024/12/13/interesting-paper-alert-harris-2024-on-nuchal-ligaments/#comments" class="commentslink" >3 Comments »</a> </div> </div> <div class="commentsblock"> </div> <div class="entry entry-10 post-22889 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-apatosaurus category-cervical category-im-stupid category-ventral-views" id="post-22889"> <div class="entrytitle"> <h2> <a href="https://svpow.com/2024/11/30/whats-up-with-your-perforated-parapophyseal-ramus-apatosaurinae-indet-byu-20178-featuring-what-have-we-learned/" rel="bookmark">What’s up with your perforated parapophyseal ramus, Apatosaurinae indet. BYU 20178? — Featuring: What have we learned?</a> </h2> <h3>November 30, 2024</h3> </div> <div class="entrybody"> <p>I happened to be reading back over <a href="https://svpow.com/2019/03/04/tutorial-34-how-to-document-a-specimen/">Tutorial 34: How to document a specimen</a>, when something caught my eye in the example photo we used of how to capture the label and appropriately positioned scalebar along with the specimen:</p> <p><div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_15793" style="width: 490px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3527-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-ventral.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-15793" data-attachment-id="15793" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2019/03/04/tutorial-34-how-to-document-a-specimen/img_3527-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-ventral/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3527-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-ventral.jpg" data-orig-size="3200,2400" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2","credit":"","camera":"Canon PowerShot S100","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1463698709","copyright":"","focal_length":"5.2","iso":"400","shutter_speed":"0.033333333333333","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="IMG_3527–BYU-20178–apatosaurine-cervical–ventral" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>BYU 20178, cervical vertebra from an apatosaurine sauropod in ventral view, anterior to the left.</p> " data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3527-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-ventral.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3527-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-ventral.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-15793" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3527-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-ventral.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="360" srcset="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3527-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-ventral.jpg?w=480&h=360 480w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3527-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-ventral.jpg?w=960&h=720 960w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3527-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-ventral.jpg?w=150&h=113 150w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3527-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-ventral.jpg?w=300&h=225 300w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/img_3527-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-ventral.jpg?w=768&h=576 768w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-15793" class="wp-caption-text">BYU 20178, cervical vertebra from an apatosaurine sauropod in ventral view, anterior to the left.</p></div></p> <p>Somehow, when I wrote that post, I didn’t actually <em>look</em> at the photo I was showing you all as an example of How To Do It Right. And, worse, I ignored my own advice from the same tutorial: to actually <em>look</em> at the damned specimen while you’re right there with it.</p> <p>If I’d done either, I would have noticed that the left parapophyseal ramus (at the top of the photo, supporting the cervical rib) has a whacking great hole in it. Here you go, in close-up.</p> <p><div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_22892" style="width: 490px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/img_3527-close-up.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-22892" data-attachment-id="22892" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2024/11/30/whats-up-with-your-perforated-parapophyseal-ramus-apatosaurinae-indet-byu-20178-featuring-what-have-we-learned/img_3527-close-up/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/img_3527-close-up.jpg" data-orig-size="1229,921" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2","credit":"","camera":"Canon PowerShot S100","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1463698709","copyright":"","focal_length":"5.2","iso":"400","shutter_speed":"0.033333333333333","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="IMG_3527–close-up" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="<p>Merely a close-up of the previous photo, showing the relevant area.</p> " data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/img_3527-close-up.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/img_3527-close-up.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-22892" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/img_3527-close-up.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="360" srcset="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/img_3527-close-up.jpg?w=480&h=360 480w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/img_3527-close-up.jpg?w=960&h=720 960w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/img_3527-close-up.jpg?w=150&h=112 150w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/img_3527-close-up.jpg?w=300&h=225 300w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/img_3527-close-up.jpg?w=768&h=576 768w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-22892" class="wp-caption-text">Merely a close-up of the previous photo, showing the relevant area.</p></div></p> <p>Infuriatingly, it’s one of only three photos I took of this specimen (it was during <a href="https://svpow.com/2016/05/18/thank-you-to-all-our-sauropocalypse-hosts/">the Sauropocalypse of 2019</a>), and the only one in ventral view.</p> <p>BUT! Check out this posterior view, which is one of the other two photos. (The third is useless for our present purposes.)</p> <p><div data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_23117" style="width: 490px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior.jpg"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-23117" data-attachment-id="23117" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2024/11/30/whats-up-with-your-perforated-parapophyseal-ramus-apatosaurinae-indet-byu-20178-featuring-what-have-we-learned/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior.jpg" data-orig-size="2747,2060" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2","credit":"","camera":"Canon PowerShot S100","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1463698725","copyright":"","focal_length":"5.2","iso":"500","shutter_speed":"0.033333333333333","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="IMG_3528–BYU-20178–apatosaurine-cervical–posterior" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-23117 size-full" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="360" srcset="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior.jpg?w=480&h=360 480w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior.jpg?w=960&h=720 960w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior.jpg?w=150&h=112 150w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior.jpg?w=300&h=225 300w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior.jpg?w=768&h=576 768w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-23117" class="wp-caption-text">BYU 20178, cervical vertebra from an apatosaurine sauropod in posterior view, upside down.</p></div></p> <p>From this angle, it looks like a perfectly respectable apatosaurine cervical. Could it be that the parapophyseal ramus, facing us edge-on at top right in the photo, is just not displaying the perforation from this angle?</p> <p>I dont think so: there is a distinctive pattern of cracks in the posterior face of the diapophyseal ramus, which you can see in both photos, and which I’m highlighting here in red here:</p> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-lines.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="23120" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2024/11/30/whats-up-with-your-perforated-parapophyseal-ramus-apatosaurinae-indet-byu-20178-featuring-what-have-we-learned/img_3527-close-up-lines/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-lines.jpg" data-orig-size="1229,921" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2","credit":"","camera":"Canon PowerShot S100","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1463698709","copyright":"","focal_length":"5.2","iso":"400","shutter_speed":"0.033333333333333","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="IMG_3527–close-up–LINES" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-lines.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-lines.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-23120" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-lines.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="360" srcset="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-lines.jpg?w=480&h=360 480w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-lines.jpg?w=960&h=720 960w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-lines.jpg?w=150&h=112 150w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-lines.jpg?w=300&h=225 300w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-lines.jpg?w=768&h=576 768w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a></p> <p>And here:</p> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior-lines.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="23121" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2024/11/30/whats-up-with-your-perforated-parapophyseal-ramus-apatosaurinae-indet-byu-20178-featuring-what-have-we-learned/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior-lines/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior-lines.jpg" data-orig-size="877,657" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2","credit":"","camera":"Canon PowerShot S100","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1463698725","copyright":"","focal_length":"5.2","iso":"500","shutter_speed":"0.033333333333333","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="IMG_3528–BYU-20178–apatosaurine-cervical–posterior–LINES" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior-lines.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior-lines.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-23121" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior-lines.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="360" srcset="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior-lines.jpg?w=480&h=360 480w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior-lines.jpg?w=150&h=112 150w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior-lines.jpg?w=300&h=225 300w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior-lines.jpg?w=768&h=575 768w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3528-byu-20178-apatosaurine-cervical-posterior-lines.jpg 877w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a></p> <p>What appeared in the first photo to be the part of the parapohyseal ramus with those cracks is now seen to be diapophyseal. And that original photo up at the top doesn’t show a perforation at all, just an oblique view of the cervical rib loop. It <em>looks</em> like a perforation because from that one angle the parapophyseal ramus perfectly overlays the diapophyseal. But now we know what we’re looking for, we can see where the overlap is.</p> <p>Here’s that first photo again with the overlap emphasized by adding a fake shadow:</p> <p><a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-shadows.jpg"><img data-attachment-id="23124" data-permalink="https://svpow.com/2024/11/30/whats-up-with-your-perforated-parapophyseal-ramus-apatosaurinae-indet-byu-20178-featuring-what-have-we-learned/img_3527-close-up-shadows/" data-orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-shadows.jpg" data-orig-size="1229,921" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"2","credit":"","camera":"Canon PowerShot S100","caption":"","created_timestamp":"1463698709","copyright":"","focal_length":"5.2","iso":"400","shutter_speed":"0.033333333333333","title":"","orientation":"1"}" data-image-title="IMG_3527–close-up–SHADOWS" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="" data-medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-shadows.jpg?w=300" data-large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-shadows.jpg?w=480" loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-23124" src="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-shadows.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="360" srcset="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-shadows.jpg?w=480&h=360 480w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-shadows.jpg?w=960&h=720 960w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-shadows.jpg?w=150&h=112 150w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-shadows.jpg?w=300&h=225 300w, https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/img_3527-close-up-shadows.jpg?w=768&h=576 768w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></a></p> <h1>What have we learned?</h1> <p>First, we’ve learned that <em>nothing</em> is up with the <em>un</em>perforated parapophyseal ramus of Apatosaurinae indet. BYU 20178. It can go about its business.</p> <p>But there is a broader lesson here, about looking a photos of complex three-dimensional objects, especially when they also have complex surface textures. By all means, look at such photos and enjoy them — but be <em>very</em> careful about drawing conclusions from them in isolation. They can be terribly misleading.</p> <p>So misleading that when I laid down the first sketch of this post, it really was going to be about the osteological novelty of the perforation. I’m laying my card on the table here, I’m dumbass enough to have walked right into the trap I’m warning about. The only thing that saved me was a trivial wrinkle of my method, which I’m going to share now in the hope that it helps. Here it is:</p> <p>When I prepare an image for use in the blog, I don’t rename it from the camera’s uninformative name <strong>IMG_3527.JPG</strong> to something like <strong>BYU-20178–apatosaurine-cervical–ventral.JPG</strong>. No, instead I rename it pedantically to a filename that <em>also</em> retains the camera’s originally allocated filename — in this case, <strong>IMG_3527–BYU-20178–apatosaurine-cervical–ventral.JPG</strong>.</p> <p>Why does that help? Because it meant that when I returned to this draft post long after that first sketch, I was able to see that image number 3527, locate the original IMG_3527, and see that I had IMG_3528 right next to it — and that photo had the critical posterior view.</p> <p>This probably seems like a very little thing; but it’s helped me many, many times over the years. Not only in blogging, either, but in figure preparation for formal publications. When I make a multiview like the apatosaur cervical that’s <a href="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/figure-6-big-pink-apatosaur-c7.jpeg">Figure 6 of Wedel and Taylor (2023) on bifurcated cervical ribs</a>, the layers aren’t just named things like <strong>anterior</strong> and <strong>ventral</strong>, but <strong>IMG_6735 anterior</strong>.That means if I need to check my interpretation of part of the figure, I can find the other photos I took around the same time to compare with.</p> <p>I recommend it.</p> <h1>References</h1> <ul> <li><a href="https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/vamp/index.php/VAMP/article/view/29394/21449">Wedel, Mathew J., and Michael P. Taylor. 2023. The biomechanical significance of bifurcated cervical ribs in apatosaurine sauropods. <i>VAMP</i> (<i>Vertebrate Anatomy Morphology Palaeontology</i>) <b>11</b>:91-100. doi: <tt>10.18435/vamp29394</tt></a></li> </ul> <p> </p> <hr /> <p><a href="https://doi.org/10.59350/37nhm-hhq17">doi:10.59350/37nhm-hhq17</a></p> </div> <div class="entrymeta"> <div class="postinfo"> <span class="postedby">Posted by Mike Taylor</span><br /> <span class="filedto">Filed in <a href="https://svpow.com/category/diplodocids/apatosaurus/" rel="category tag">Apatosaurus</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/cervical/" rel="category tag">cervical</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/im-stupid/" rel="category tag">I'm stupid</a>, <a href="https://svpow.com/category/ventral-views/" rel="category tag">ventral views</a></span><br /> </div> <a href="https://svpow.com/2024/11/30/whats-up-with-your-perforated-parapophyseal-ramus-apatosaurinae-indet-byu-20178-featuring-what-have-we-learned/#comments" class="commentslink" >5 Comments »</a> </div> </div> <div class="commentsblock"> </div> <div class="navigation"> <div class="alignleft"><a href="https://svpow.com/page/2/" >« Older Entries</a></div> <div class="alignright"></div> </div> </div> <ul id="sidebar"> <li id="custom_html-3" class="widget_text widget widget_custom_html"><h2 class="widgettitle">Support SV-POW!</h2> <div class="textwidget custom-html-widget"><a href="https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=23092575"><img src="https://svpow.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/become_a_patron_button.png" alt="Become a Patron!" height="41" width="174"></a> <p /></div></li> <li id="search-2" class="widget widget_search"><h2 class="widgettitle">Search</h2> <form role="search" method="get" id="searchform" class="searchform" action="https://svpow.com/"> <div> <label class="screen-reader-text" for="s">Search for:</label> <input type="text" value="" name="s" id="s" /> <input type="submit" id="searchsubmit" value="Search" /> </div> </form></li> <li id="recent-posts-2" class="widget widget_recent_entries"> <h2 class="widgettitle">Recent Posts</h2> <ul> <li> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/02/14/if-you-believe-in-artificial-intelligence-take-five-minutes-to-ask-it-about-stuff-you-know-well/">If you believe in “Artificial Intelligence”, take five minutes to ask it about stuff you know well</a> </li> <li> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/02/11/dear-royal-society-please-stop-lending-legitimacy-to-elon-musk/">Dear Royal Society: please stop lending legitimacy to Elon Musk</a> </li> <li> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/02/04/new-paper-review-of-the-supernumerary-muscles-of-the-human-leg-and-foot/">New paper: review of the supernumerary muscles of the human leg and foot</a> </li> <li> <a href="https://svpow.com/2025/01/29/new-paper-out-today-boisvert-et-al-2025-on-all-the-haplos/">New paper out today: Boisvert et al. 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(2021) on saltasaur pneumaticity</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-19106"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/kay-estes-and-wedel-2021-on-variation-in-the-peroneus-tertius-muscle/">Kay, Estes, and Wedel (2021) on variation in the peroneus tertius muscle (PT)</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-22500"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/amedeo-et-al-2021-on-variation-in-human-leg-muscles/">Amedeo et al (2021) on variation in human leg muscles</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-18959"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/wedel-et-al-2021-on-expanded-neural-canals-in-the-snowmass-haplocanthosaurus/">Wedel et al. (2021) on expanded neural canals in the Snowmass <i>Haplocanthosaurus</i></a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-18339"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-and-wedel-2021-on-pneumatic-variation/">Taylor and Wedel (2021) on pneumatic variation</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-22534"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/staples-et-al-2019-on-long-cutaneous-branches-of-the-obturator-nerve-in-humans/">Staples et al (2019) on long cutaneous branches of the obturator nerve in humans</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-14521"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-2018-on-xenoposeidon-as-a-rebbachisaurid/">Taylor (2018) on <i>Xenoposeidon</i> as a rebbachisaurid</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-8940"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-and-wedel-2013-on-the-neck-of-barosaurus/">Taylor and Wedel (2016) on the neck of <i>Barosaurus</i></a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-13662"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/hallett-and-wedel-2016-the-sauropod-dinosaurs-life-in-the-age-of-giants/">Hallett and Wedel (2016), <i>The Sauropod Dinosaurs: Life in the Age of Giants</i></a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-13611"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/ansolabehere-et-al-2016-on-moral-dimensions-of-open/">Ansolabehere et al. (2016) on moral dimensions of open</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-12849"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/hone-farke-and-wedel-2016-on-dinosaur-ontogenetic-stages/">Hone, Farke, and Wedel (2016) on dinosaur ontogenetic stages</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-12768"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-2016-on-evaluating-research/">Taylor (2016) on evaluating research</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-12408"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/wedel-et-al-on-apatosaur-neck-combat/">Wedel et al. on apatosaur neck combat</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-12081"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/upchurch-mannion-and-taylor-2015-on-haestasaurus-becklesii/">Upchurch, Mannion and Taylor (2015) on <i>Haestasaurus becklesii</i></a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-11607"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/kraatz-sherratt-bumacod-and-wedel-2015-on-rabbit-skulls/">Kraatz, Sherratt, Bumacod, and Wedel (2015) on rabbit skulls</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-11009"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-2014-on-quantifying-neck-cartilage/">Taylor (2014) on quantifying neck cartilage</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-11200"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/foster-and-wedel-2014-on-the-snowmass-haplocanthosaurus/">Foster and Wedel (2014) on the Snowmass <i>Haplocanthosaurus</i></a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-11139"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/farke-cifelli-maxwell-and-wedel-2014-on-aquilops/">Farke, Cifelli, Maxwell, and Wedel (2014) on <i>Aquilops</i></a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-22490"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/penera-et-al-2014-on-the-perforating-branch-of-the-peroneal-artery/">Penera et al (2014) on the perforating branch of the peroneal artery</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-10591"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-2014-for-2004-on-dinosaur-diversity/">Taylor (2014 for 2004) on dinosaur diversity</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-9184"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/wedel-and-taylor-2013b-on-caudal-pneumaticity/">Wedel and Taylor (2013b) on caudal pneumaticity</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-9180"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-and-wedel-2013c-on-neck-cartilage/">Taylor and Wedel (2013b) on neck cartilage</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-7996"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/wedel-and-taylor-2013-on-sauropod-neural-spine-bifurcation/">Wedel and Taylor (2013a) on sauropod neural spine bifurcation</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-6799"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-and-wedel-2012-on-sauropod-neck-anatomy/">Taylor and Wedel (2013a) on sauropod neck anatomy</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-4125"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/wedel-2011-on-long-nerves-of-sauropods/">Wedel (2012) on long nerves of sauropods</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-3808"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/yates-wedel-and-bonnan-2011-on-prosauropod-pneumaticity/">Yates, Wedel, and Bonnan (2012) on prosauropod pneumaticity</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-4061"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-hone-wedel-and-naish-2011-on-sexual-selection-of-sauropod-necks/">Taylor, Hone, Wedel and Naish (2011) on sexual selection of sauropod necks</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-3541"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-wedel-and-cifelli-2011-on-brontomerus/">Taylor, Wedel and Cifelli (2011) on <i>Brontomerus</i></a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-3032"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-2010-on-the-history-of-sauropod-research/">Taylor (2010) on the history of sauropod research</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-2175"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-2009-on-the-inevitability-of-electronic-publishing-of-nomenclatural-acts/">Taylor (2009) on the inevitability of electronic publishing of nomenclatural acts</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-2089"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-2009-on-brachiosaurus-and-giraffatitan/">Taylor (2009) on <i>Brachiosaurus</i> and <i>Giraffatitan</i></a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-1341"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/taylor-et-al-2009-on-neck-posture/">Taylor, Wedel and Naish (2009) on neck posture</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-1495"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/upchurch-martin-and-taylor-2009-on-cetiosaurus-nomenclature/">Upchurch, Martin, and Taylor (2009) on <i>Cetiosaurus</i> nomenclature</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-867"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/wedel-2009-on-air-sacs/">Wedel (2009) on air sacs</a></li> <li class="page_item page-item-571"><a href="https://svpow.com/papers-by-sv-powsketeers/xenoposeidon-week/">Taylor and Naish (2007) on <i>Xenoposeidon</i></a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> </li> <li id="tag_cloud-2" class="widget widget_tag_cloud"><h2 class="widgettitle">Categories</h2> <div style="overflow: hidden;"><a href="https://svpow.com/category/100-totally-real/" style="font-size: 100%; padding: 1px; margin: 1px;" title="100% totally real (68)">100% totally real</a> <a href="https://svpow.com/category/diplodocids/apatosaurus/" style="font-size: 148.125%; padding: 1px; margin: 1px;" title="Apatosaurus (134)">Apatosaurus</a> <a href="https://svpow.com/tag/art/" style="font-size: 163.4375%; padding: 1px; margin: 1px;" title="Art (155)">Art</a> <a href="https://svpow.com/category/brachiosaurs/" style="font-size: 166.35416666667%; padding: 1px; margin: 1px;" title="brachiosaurids (159)">brachiosaurids</a> <a 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