In a word, amazingly. After 6 days (counting public galleries last Sunday), 4300 photos, 55 videos, dozens of pages of notes, and hundreds of measurements, we’re tired, happy, and buzzing with new observations and ideas. We caught up with some old friends.
This is what it’s like. The lack of narration is deliberate. We have other videos, which we’ll post at other times, with lots of yap. This one is just for reference, in case later on we need to know what the ischia look like in posterior view, or how the scapulocoracoid is curved, or whatever.
You’ll remember that we’ve been playing with CM 555, a subadult apatosaurine of indeterminate species, though John McIntosh assigned it to Brontosaurus (then Apatosaurus) excelsus.
Having spent much of the last few days playing with the cervical vertebrae of a subadult apatosaur, and trying to make sense of those of the mounted adult, neck ontogeny is much on our minds. Here’s an example from the less charismatic half of Saurischia.
Mike’s and Matt’s excellent adventure in Pittsburgh continues! Today was Day 4, and just as yesterday offered us a unique opportunity to see the mounted Dipodocus and Apatosaurus skeletons up close on a lift, so today we got to look the two mounts from directly above!
Left to right: Allosaurus fragilis , Apatosaurus louisae , Homo sapiens , Diplodocus carnegii .
Separated at birth. Left: Apatosaurus lousiae holotype CM 2018, cast skull associated with specimen. Right: Matt Wedel. Scientists have long wondered how such a bloated beast could etc. etc.
Matt and I have completed Day 2 of our excursion to the Carnegie Musuem in Pittsburgh. Day 1 was spent in the public galleries, because collections aren’t open on Sunday, but today we got into the Big Bone room.
(Matt’s photo, taken in the public gallery of the Carnegie Museum.)
No time for a long post today, but there are a couple of cool developments I wanted to let you know about. The folks at the Barnes & Noble Settlers Ridge store in Pittsburgh got in touch and asked if I’d give a short talk and do a book signing while I’m in town.
As noted in the last post, Matt and I are off to spend a week at the Carnegie Museum from 11th-15th March. We expect to see many, many fascinating specimens there: far more than we’ll be able to do proper work on in the five days we have.