Apatosaurine cervicals of the ancient Maya civilisation
March 25, 2020
Our old sparring partner Cary Woodruff is a big fan of Monarobot, a Mexican artist who does all of her pieces in a Maya artistic style. So he commissioned this piece:
Anyone can tell that this is an apatosaurine cervical in anterior view — but which apatosaurine cervical? SV-POW Dollars(*) await the first person to correctly identify it.
Cary points out that one neat thing about the art is the colours: where possible, Monarobot uses colors the Mayas used. That blue in the vertebra is a special plant-based pigment they created.
As things stand, Cary owns the world’s only copy of this piece. But he points out that it’s born-digital, so anyone else who wants a copy is at liberty to order one; and he’s gracious enough not to object to the dilution of his print’s uniqueness. I don’t think there is a way to order directly online, but you can contact Monarobot in various places:
(*) Street value of SV-POW Dollars: zero.
Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week 
March 25, 2020 at 9:11 pm
Apatosaurus genus given those cervical ribs that are extremely ventral to the centrum. Bifid neural spine
March 25, 2020 at 11:35 pm
Apatosaurus ajax I suppose
March 26, 2020 at 11:39 am
Nope :-)
March 26, 2020 at 7:42 pm
Hard to distinguish between Apatosaurus louisae CM 3018 Cv13 and Cv12, but probably Cv13 based on the robusticity of the cervical rib.
March 26, 2020 at 7:46 pm
BAM!, we have a winner! Congratulations, ijreid, you win one million billion billion SV-POW! dollars!
March 29, 2020 at 2:09 am
When I first read the title I thought that perhaps a new discovery was made in which the Mayans possessed a real apatosaurus vertebra attributed to some Mayan hell monster or some god and that they worshiped that fossil. That would have been amazing!
😃😃😃😃
I like the illustration here anyway.
By the way I want to become a rigorous paleoartist and I would love to have your professional opinion about my work and maybe start collaborating with SV-POW! in case you need illustrations for this extraordinary blog. Greetings Mike you are the best!😎
March 30, 2020 at 10:16 am
Sorry the post was a disappointment after the title!
We are not really the people to give opinions about palaeoart in general — only where it relates to sauropod anatomy. The best guide I know of is Mark Witton’s The Paleaoartist’s Handbook (which is also amazingly inexpensive).