Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

Image courtesy of the SNOMNH

I’ll be at OU and the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History on May 8 and 9.

On Friday, May 8, I’m giving a lunch and learn thing for OU graduate students on

Matt and I were discussing a paper from last year, Korneisel and Maddin (2025) on the evolution of the atlas–axis complex. (It’s excellent, by the way. Really comprehensive.)

Mike: Atlases are so weird. It occurs to me that had the nomenclatural dice fallen differently, we might not even consider them vertebrae at all, just as we don’t consider metacar...

I’m pretty sure that our old friend the AMNH Barosaurus was the first sauropod skeleton even mounted in a rearing pose.

Taylor and Wedel 2016:Figure 1. Mounted cast skeleton of...

Back in 2010, I wrote about early artistic depictions of Brachiosaurus (including Giraffatitan). There, I wrote of the iconic mount MB.R.2181 (then HMN S II):

When the mount was completed, shortly before the start of World War II, it was unv...