BYU 11505, a caudal vertebra of a diplodocid from Dry Mesa, in posteroventral view. Note the paired pneumatic foramina on the ventral surface of the centrum. If you want to find the paleontology and anatomy videos that Mike and I have done (plus one video about open access), they have their own sidebar page now, for your convenience and for our own. It’s, uh, just to the right of where your eyes are pointing right now.

My friend and frequent collaborator (one, two, three) Tito Aureliano invited me to give a talk on his YouTube channel, I suggested pneumaticity and gigantism, and here we are. There’s a decently lengthy Q&A, moderated by Tito, after the talk itself.

BYU 12613, a very posterior cervical (probably C14 or C15) of a diplodocine sauropod, probably Kaatedocus or Diplodocus , from Dry Mesa, original fossil and 50% scale 3D print.

Skeletal inventory of the Haplocanthosaurus bones found at Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry. Boisvert et al. (2024: fig. 2). This morning saw the publication of my new paper with Colin Boisvert, Brian Curtice, and Ray Wilhite: Boisvert, Colin, Curtice, Brian, Wedel, Mathew, & Wilhite, Ray. 2024. Description of a new specimen of Haplocanthosaurus from the Dry Mesa Dinosaur Quarry. The Anatomical Record, 1–19.

To answer Mike’s question from the last post, here’s a nice dorsal of Jimbo. All the material’s from the same quarry and has consistent preservation, and this dorsal is a monster. I didn’t try to measure it through the glass. Hey guess what? It’s gonna be another really short photo post. Here are some pix of the Jimbo material on display at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center.

Another quick photo post from the road.

I gave my keynote talk last evening at the 28th Annual Tate Conference. I also passed out the handout shown above so people could have a handy reference for sauropod biology while I was talking. I have a link to a PDF version at the bottom of this post if you’d prefer it that way.

In opposition to my speech supporting the motion “the open access movement has failed”, here’s what Jessica Polka said in opposition to the motion.   The open access movement has not failed. It is in the process of succeeding. Indeed, over 50% of papers are now open access.

With my boy Colin Boisvert at BYU. He successfully defended his MS thesis, now he’s bound for OSU-Tulsa for doctoral work. You’ll hear more about his exploits reeeeaaaal soon. Fossil vending machine in the BYU Museum of Paleontology. All casts, except for the shark teeth and pieces of Campo del Cielo meteorite. They also have bigger casts for sale in the back. My brothers Venmoed me money for my birthday. BYU takes Venmo for fossil casts.

As I noted a week ago, to my enormous surprise I was invited to be one of the two participants in the plenary debate the closes the annual meeting of my long-term nemesis, the Society for Scholarly Publishing.

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