Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

Peter Falkingham and Nick Gardner independently put me onto Sketchfab: a website that provides a way to view and navigate 3D models without needing to download any software beyond the browser that you’re already running.

So get yourself over to the live Xenoposeidon model! Verify for yourself that the laminae are as I described them, that the posterior margin of the neural arch really does grade into the posterior articular surface of the centum, etc. Really, this is worth ten times whatever set of illustrations I might have provided.

Truly, we are living in the future!

UPDATE, 23 November 2017: see also this beautiful 3d model of the skull of Triceratops horridus, photogrammetrised from images taken at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France, by Benoît Rogez; and the same creator’s Nanotyrannus lancensis model, also from MNHN photos. And, most astonishingly, his model of the whole MNHN palaeontology gallery!