![]() ![]() Hallett and Wedel (2016), The Sauropod Dinosaurs: Life in the Age of Giants.Taylor and Wedel (2016) on the neck of Barosaurus.Taylor (2018) on Xenoposeidon as a rebbachisaurid.Taylor and Wedel (2021) on pneumatic variation.(2021) on expanded neural canals in the Snowmass Haplocanthosaurus Kay, Estes, and Wedel (2021) on variation in the peroneus tertius muscle (PT).(2022) on respiratory infection in a sauropod Atterholt and Wedel (2022) on paramedullary diverticula in birds.Smith, Rodgers, Dollé, and Wedel (2022) on nerve growth in big animals.Taylor and Wedel (2022) on vertebral orientation.Supersaurus, Ultrasaurus and Dystylosaurus in the 21st Century.Mike Taylor on No-one knows whether or not a…ĭale mcinnes on No-one knows whether or not a…ījnicholls2 on No-one knows whether or not a… DIY dinosaurs: building a life-size Brachiosaurus humerus standee.DIY dinosaurs: more dinosaur bone standees.Scholarly Stockholm Syndrome in full gallop.The ludicrous sizes of world-record individuals.No-one knows whether or not a neutral-tasting nutrient-sludge diet leads to enormous weight loss.In both, the part of the skull aft of the jaw joint is basically brain case: in the quoll, the joint was maybe 3 quarters of the way back from tip of snout to rear of skull, but in the marten it was close to the half-way mark: I had the song impression that norther hemisphere placental had a lot more brain than its rough Australian ecological counterpart! These are both carnivorous animals in the same general size class, so the skeletons as a whole had similar proportions, but the skulls suggested that the marten was far more “encephalized”: these were not hemisected, but the external proportions were dramatically different. (Over all, the marten skull is only about 3/4 as long as the opossum skull, but the space for the brain is about 50% longer.) … Many years ago, I saw (at the Field Museum in Chicago) side-by-side skeletons of a marten (I think: it may have been some other mustelid) and some species of what used to be called Australian Native Cats (now quolls). The hemisected opossum and marten contrast interestingly: the marten is much brainier. Plus a partially-mummified but mostly defleshed armadillo whose saga deserves a detailed recounting: Couple more pig heads at work, and at the house a strategic reserve sheep head, plus skunk, squirrel, and rat. I have more heads awaiting skull-ization in various freezers, too. The peccary is a memento of a trip to Big Bend back in 2007 (I bought it at a taxidermy shop a long way outside the national park), and the dog came from the seconds bin at the Museum of Osteology - I plan to saw off the top of the braincase to see the cranial nerve exits, just as in the preparation by Peter Dodson shown in this post. The rest I purchased here and there over the years, usually when they were on deep discount.The alligator head and deer skull were gifts, from Vicki and from my brother Ryan, respectively.The first two I found in the woods, the mostly-decomposed rabbit was a gift from my father-in-law, and the sheep head I obtained from the market down the street ($10, and I ate the meat). I prepped the armadillo, cat, rabbit, and sheep skulls myself (besides the bear and pig).I should do more skull blogging, most of these have a story: I’ve blogged about the bear, the pig, and the hemisected skulls, but I think that’s it. Not pictured: emergency backup sheep, moar rabbits Front row: opossum, marten (both hemisected). My skull collection is split across home and office, but I had to go in to campus this afternoon for a video recording thing, so I got most of the office set, shown above, on that jaunt.Īfter the workday ended, I had just enough time before the light faded to assemble and photograph the home collection:īack row: peccary, pig, deer, sheep, dog. Naturally I had to support my friend and colleague in this difficult time, when he may be experiencing confusing feelings regarding nasal turbinates, multi-cusped teeth, and the dentary-squamosal jaw joint. It warmed my crooked little heart to see Mike Taylor, noted sauropodologist and disdainer-of-mammal-heads, return mammal skulls to the blog’s front page yesterday. But if you can’t have a lounge lizard crash your mammal skull party, what are you even doing with your life? Not pictured: about four rabbit skulls I forgot I had boxed up, plus a couple of turtles (yeah, yeah) sitting on a friend’s desk, in their locked office. I know, the archosaurs aren’t mammals, and the alligator isn’t even a skull. Left to right: alligator, beaver, black bear, armadillo, cat, ostrich. ![]()
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