Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

Work continues apace with Veronica, my tame ostrich.  (See previous parts one, two, three and four).  I’ve been photographing the individual bones of the skull — a skill that’s taken me some time to get good at, and one that I might do a tutorial on some time, to follow up the one on photographing big bones.

Here is a preview of the result of this photography-fest: a multi-view figure of the ethmoid ossification.

The top row shows it in dorsal view; the middle row in left lateral, posterior, right lateral and anterior views; the bottom row in ventral view.

This is a midline bone, or rather complex of bones, that lives between and slightly ahead of the eyeballs, as shown in the photographs of part 6c.  The top part is the mesethmoid, which contributes to the roof of the skull between the nasals and ahead of the frontals.  Below that is — well, I’m not sure what it’s called.  Jaime said in a comment that it’s “a portion of the ossified interorbital septum”, but it’s not like a septum: it’s a hollow capsule with very, very thin walls.  Anyone know its proper name?

By the way, I strongly encourage you to click through the image above and see it in its full high-resolution (5943 x 3384) glory.  As a taster, here’s a small segment — the rear portion of the dorsal view — in half resolution:

As you can see, that’s some very well textured bone — much more so than is apparent to the naked eye.