Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

My eldest son Dan went out to visit his girlfriend Beth, shortly before the Coronavirus crisis began, during her university placement in Toulouse. While they were there, they bought me this gift:

As you can see, it’s a Lego-like self-assembly kit; but as you can also see from the mug in the background, it’s tiny. As  best I can make out, the blocks are half the length and width of Lego blocks, and about third the height. The whole model is about seven or eight inches (18-20 cm) from nose to tail.

Here’s a very quick walk-round, so you can appreciate the 3d shape.

I am properly impressed with this. It has the shape of the ribcage right, and the hips and shoulders, and the proportions are right so that it conveys with absolute conviction the quality of brachiosaurosity. It has a very posable neck that can be placed in a realistic life posture, and there are even hints of scapulae and ilia.

I made only one change from the instructions: I reoriented the forefoot so that we have a vertically oriented arcade of metacarpals rather than a plantigrade forefoot.

It was a very picky build. The instructions recommend using Nanoblock tweezers, sold separately, but I just used my big clumsy fingers, so that ribs and legs and things were constantly falling off. The process was rather like what this video shows, but much slower.

If you want one of your own, you can get it from Amazon UK or from Amazon US. I recommend it for serious sauropod lovers, but would be infuriating for children, and requires patience and precision to assemble.

Oh, and kit came with plenty of spare parts, in case you lose some of them: enough that Dan was able to make a juvenile with the leftovers.