Get your relative-lengths-of-sauropod-necks T-shirts!
March 17, 2014
Are you a lover of sauropod necks?
Do you long to demonstrate to your friends and family how much better[1] they are than the necks of other long-necked critters?
Are you crazy for the Taylor and Wedel (2013a) paper on why sauropods had long necks; and why giraffes have short necks, but disappointed that it’s not, until now, been obtainable in T-shirt form?
If so, it’s your lucky day! You can now buy a T-shirt featuring Figure 1 on the front (necks of a human, giraffe, ostrich, Paraceratherium[2], Therizinosaurus, Gigantoraptor, Arambourgiania and Tanystropheus) and Figure 3 on the back (necks of Diplodocus, Puertasaurus, Sauroposeidon, Mamenchisaurus and Supersaurus).
And here it is in real life — sorry I couldn’t get a more photogenic model at short notice.
And here are the original figures as they appeared in the paper. The full captions, as reproduced here, are also on the shirts — just in case you need to check details while you’re out and about.
Figure 1. Necks of long-necked non-sauropods, to scale. The giraffe and Paraceratherium are the longest necked mammals; the ostrich is the longest necked extant bird; Therizinosaurus and Gigantoraptor are the largest representatives of two long-necked theropod clades; Arambourgiania is the longest necked pterosaur; and Tanystropheus has a uniquely long neck relative to torso length. Human head modified from Gray’s Anatomy (1918 edition, fig. 602). Giraffe modified from photograph by Kevin Ryder (CC BY, http://flic.kr/p/cRvCcQ). Ostrich modified from photograph by “kei51” (CC BY, http://flic.kr/p/cowoYW). Paraceratherium modified from Osborn (1923, figure 1). Therizinosaurus modified from Nothronychus reconstruction by Scott Hartman. Gigantoraptor modified from Heyuannia reconstruction by Scott Hartman. Arambourgiania modified from Zhejiangopterus reconstruction by Witton & Naish (2008, figure 1). Tanystropheus modified from reconstruction by David Peters. Alternating blue and pink bars are 1 m tall.
Figure 3. Necks of long-necked sauropods, to scale. Diplodocus, modified from elements in Hatcher (1901, plate 3), represents a “typical” long-necked sauropod, familiar from many mounted skeletons in museums. Puertasaurus, Sauroposeidon, Mamenchisaurus and Supersaurus modified from Scott Hartman’s reconstructions of Futalognkosaurus, Cedarosaurus, Mamenchisaurus and Supersaurus respectively. Alternating pink and blue bars are one meter in width. Inset shows Fig. 1 to the same scale.
No doubt these will be all the rage at SVPCA this year!
Update (the same evening)
As suggested by Kevin, I’ve now made the shirt available in a selection of eight versions: four men’s shirt, two women’s, and two kids. I don’t really understand what the differences are between them all, but they seemed to be the saner choices among those offered by Cafe Press. You can get any or all of them here. The shirt modelled above is the one called simple “White T-Shirt”. Please be aware that unlike all the others, the “Value T-Shirt” has no printing on the back — only Figure 1 on the front.
Notes
[1] i.e. bigger.
[2] Not to be confused with Paramecium.
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week 
March 17, 2014 at 5:44 pm
Oh, wow! Any way you can make it available as a poster?
March 17, 2014 at 5:49 pm
Any how about kid sizes?
March 17, 2014 at 9:22 pm
I’ll see what I can do.
March 17, 2014 at 10:19 pm
Kid sizes are now available, along with women’s shirts and a broader selection of men’s shirts. Thanks for the suggestion.
I can certainly make a poster if there’s a demand, but the source image for Figure 3 is only 1683 pixels wide. For the maximum-ten-inch T-shirt area, that’s 168 dpi, which is more than adequate for fabric printing. But on a 20×16 “small poster”, that would come out at 84 dpi, which is not going to look great.
March 18, 2014 at 2:11 pm
Thanks a ton, looks like my nephew will soon be spreading awareness of sauropod neck awesomeness!
March 19, 2014 at 6:54 am
nice but sort of busy.how about one,sooner or later,with just the Archbishop on it,really big!
March 19, 2014 at 7:36 am
Unfortunately, David, Archbishop shirts are unlikely ever to happen, because the NHM’s terms of photography state that all photos taken of its specimens are their copyright. The idea of negotiating with the museum’s crack Department For The Prevention Of Publicity for the right to make shirts is not an appealing one.
March 19, 2014 at 9:02 am
Giraffatitan-vertebra shirts are a much better bet, as the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (which owns the fossils) has a much more liberal photography policy which is pretty much CC By: do what you want so long as you credit them. (But I think we can all agree that the Giraffatitan vertebrae are less photogenic than those of the Archbishop.)