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Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

SV-POW! ... All sauropod vertebrae, except when we're talking about Open Access. ISSN 3033-3695
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One aspect of sauropod neck cartilage that’s been overlooked — and this applies to all non-avian dinosaurs, not just sauropods — is the configuration of the cartilage in their necks. It’s not widely appreciated that birds’ necks differ from those of all other animals in this respect, and we don’t yet know whether sauropods resembled birds or mammals.

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In a comment on the previous post, Dean asked: “What was the difference in length between the neck with its cartilage and the bones flush together?” I’m glad you asked me that.  You’ll recall from last time that the fully fleshed neck — intact apart from the removal of the skin and maybe some superficial muscle — was 51 cm in length from the front of the atlas to the back of the centrum of the seventh cervical vertebra.

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Isn’t it funny how often an idea seems to pop up all over the place at about the same time?  The classic example is the independent and more or less simultaneous invention of calculus by both Isaac Newton and Wilhelm Leibniz, but similar kinds of things seem to happen quite often. And there’s something similar going on right now.