Fun and games at the BYU museum
May 12, 2016
Things remain frantic on the Sauropocalypse tour. Today, we were back at the BYU Museum of Paleontology, working on four or five separate projects. Here’s Matt, photographing broken bone of the iconic Supersaurus cervical BYU 9024, while a pallet of Big Pink Apatosaur cervicals wait for attention in the background:
You’ve seen this bone before – I first posted on it 8 years ago this month, and it turned up again here and here. It is still the longest known vertebra of any animal that has ever lived.
And here’s Mike, getting Jensen’s sculpture of the same vertebra down from storage to compare it to the original:
In Jensen’s (1985) original description of this vertebra – which he at first referred to Ultrasauros – the only relevant illustration he included was one of the model, so it was good to see this bit of history in the flesh (Jensen did include photos of the actual bone in later papers). We’ll show the two vertebrae, real and sculpted, side by side in a future post.
References
- Jensen, J. A. 1985. Three new sauropod dinosaurs from the Upper Jurassic of Colorado. Great Basin Naturalist 45, 697-709.
When I was back in Oklahoma in March, I met with Anne Weil to see some of the new Apatosaurus material she’s getting out of her Homestead Quarry. It’s nice material, but that’s a post for another day. Anne said something that really resonated with me, which was, “I love it when you guys post about vertebral morphology, because it helps me learn this stuff.” Okay, Anne, message received. This will begin to make things right.
I spent a week at BYU back in 2005, collecting data for my dissertation. One of the first things I had to do was teach myself how to identify the vertebrae of different sauropods, because BYU has just about all of the common Morrison taxa. These are the notes I made back then.
I always planned to do something with them – clean them up, get them into a more usable form. There are a lot of scribbly asides that are probably hard for others to read, and it would be more useful if I put the easily confused taxa next to each other – Barosaurus next to Brachiosaurus, for example. And I didn’t go into serial changes at all.
Still, hopefully someone will find these useful. If there are things I missed or got wrong, the comment thread is open. And if you want all four spreads in one convenient package, here’s a PDF: Wedel 2005 notes on Morrison sauropod cervicals
Mike and I leave for the Sauropocalypse tomorrow. I’m hoping to post at least a few pretty pictures from the road, as I did for the Mid-Mesozoic Field Conference two years ago. Stand by…
SV-POW! on the road – Matt’s public lecture at the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History
March 14, 2016
Just a quick heads up for any SV-POW! readers within convenient striking distance of Norman, Oklahoma, this Wednesday, March 16. Like all of the lectures in the “Dinosaurs Past & Present” series at OMNH, this one is free to the public. I hope to see some of you there!
Fighting apatosaur art #7: the world speaks!
October 22, 2015
I’d hoped that we’d see a flood of BRONTOSMASH-themed artwork, but that’s not quite happened. We’ve seen a trickle, though, and that’s still exciting. Here are the ones I know about. If anyone knows of more, please let me know and I will update this post.
First, in a comment on the post with my own awful attempts, Darius posted this sketch of a BROTOSMASH-themed intimidation display:
And in close-up:
Very elegant, and it’s nice to see an extension of our original hypothesis into other behaviours.
The next thing I saw was Mark Witton’s beautiful piece, described on his own site (in a post which coined the term BRONTOSMASH):
And in close-up:
I love the sense of bulk here — something of the elephant-seal extant analogue comes through — and the subdued colour scheme. Also, the Knight-style inclusion in the background of the individual in the swamp. (No, sauropods were not swamp-bound; but no doubt, like elephants, they spent at least some time in water.)
And finally (for now, at least) we have Matthew Inabinett’s piece, simply titled BRONTOSMASH:
I love the use of traditional materials here — yes, it still happens! — and I like the addition of the dorsal midline spike row to give us a full on TOBLERONE OF DOOM. (Also: the heads just look right. I wish I could do that. Maybe one day.)
Update (Monday 26 October)
Here is Oliver Demuth’s sketch, as pointed out by him in a comment.
Thanks, Oliver! Nice to see the ventral-on-dorsal combat style getting some love.
So that’s where we are, folks. Did I miss any? Is anyone working on new pieces on this theme? Post ’em in the comments!
Fighting apatosaur art #6: the ones that got away
September 30, 2015
Here’s the last post (at least for now) in the Fighting Apatosaur Art series — and we’re back to Brian Engh, who we started with.
Early in the process of putting together artwork to illustrate our apatosaur neck combat hypothesis, Brian tried out a whole bunch of outlandish concepts. Here are two that he showed us, but which were too speculative to push forward with. First, necks as big, floppy display structures:
As a piece of art, I really like this one: the boldness, the vivid contrasts, the alien quality of the animals. But as a palaeobiological hypothesis, it doesn’t really work: so much of the neck morphology in apatosaurs is to do with absorbing ventral forces that soft-tissue display structures down there don’t make a whole lot of sense.
Here’s the other one — which Brian titles “Apatosaur inflato-porcupine fish neck-bag”.
I particularly like the way the theropod being rolled around on the ground and repeatedly spiked. It’s no more than it deserves.
Does the idea of an inflatable neck make sense? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were sauropods that did something like this — plenty of extant animals inflate parts of their body for display purposes, after all — but I don’t think it would have been apatosaurs. Again, the characteristic features of the neck don’t seem well matched to this scenario.
Well, that’s all the apatosaur neck-combat art we have. If there’s to be a part 7 in this series, it will be made of artwork that you, dear readers, have contributed. Fire away!
Fighting apatosaur art #5: Mark Witton
September 28, 2015
If we accept that the distinctive ventral projections of the gigantic and ventrally displaced cervical ribs of apatosaurs were likely the base of some form of soft-tissue rugosity — such as keratinous horns like those of rhinos — then does it follow that those necks were used in combat as we suggested?
Maybe, maybe not. As scientists, we are always open to other hypotheses. We’re looking for the simplest, most parsimonious model — the one which best explains the facts.
That’s why we like Mark Witton’s “neck-velcro wall-climbing” hypothesis, as shown in this actual scientific life restoration.
As Mark explained to me, apatosaurs may have used their neck-hooks for more than passive clinging. They may also have been used for inching up the rock-face: first one side of the neck advancing and then the next, in the manner of the “pterygoid walking” that snakes use to progressively swallow large prey.
This is why it’s important to present early-stage work at conferences (and as preprints). Otherwise, you may never hear about important alternative hypotheses like this until after the paper is out and it’s too late to include them.
Fighting apatosaur art #4: #MikeTaylorAwesomeDinoArt
September 27, 2015
I mentioned last time that, as I sat next to Bob Nicholls in an SVPCA session, I started sketching an apatosaur combat in the hope that my horrible drawing would provoke Bob to do a good one. That worked admirably, which means there is no good reason for me to subject you to my own sketch.
So here it is.
I think the main lessons to draw from this piece are:
- I can’t draw heads.
- I can’t draw limbs.
- I can’t draw torsos.
- I may be just about capable of drawing tails.
In defence of this picture, it does have something of a How And Why Wonder Book of Dinosaurs quality to it, which people of a certain age may find nostalgic. (See also: How fat was Brontosaurus?)
During a break, I asked for Bob’s advice on how I can do better. I know I’ll never be an artist, but it’s fun to sketch (especially during mammal talks) and I’d like to improve a little. The main point Bob made was to think about where the light is coming from. Be consistent about that, and you get an immediate improvement in realism.
So here’s what I sketched the next day, with that in mind:
So what have we learned this time?
- I didn’t consciously do this, but I ended up with a composition kind of similar to what Bob came up with, but worse.
- In my desire to achieve the intertwined-necks pose, I made the necks too long and thin.
- I still can’t draw heads.
- Let’s just forget about the hindlimb of the one on the left.
- Uh, and let’s forget the torsos, too.
- But at least the light is coming from top right!
In short, as Stephen Sondheim put it, art isn’t easy. I wish I had more time to put into it.
The real moral of this story is: if I had a crack at drawing fighting apatosaurs, you definitely can. Let us know if you do — leave a comment. We’ll gather people’s contributions in a future post.
(See also the previous Fighting Apatosaur Art posts: Brian Engh #1, Brian Engh #2, Bob Nicholls. More to come!)
