Cranial skeleton vs postcranial skeleton

Having said what I said in my last post (about a few minutes ago...) I find it rather annoying that there is a huge abundance of literature on the detailed anatomy of the cranial skeleton but less so on the postcranial skeleton. If the dinosaur is known only from postcranial materials then there is a relatively good account of it - of course what else can you write about? Howver, if there is a perfect skeleton preserved, chances are, the description would be skull-heavy. The authors may even state that "the postcranial skeleton would be described elsewhere" but it probably won't be for another decade or so until this publication actually comes out.

I mean, I like cranial skeletons. Skulls are cool! That's what I work on.

But having collected measurements of postcrania from the literature, this popularity of cranial skeleton is really inconvenient...and I don't have the money or time (well for now) to go all over the world and measure these myself. And a lot of the times, it may be "politically" difficult to get access to these specimens...

Comments

Nick said…

Yes! This is especially true of ornithischian dinosaurs, where there has been an overwhelming assumption of uniformity in the postcranial skeleton. It's very frustrating for students who do not necessarily have the resources available to get access to the specimens.

10 January, 2008 06:52

Spinosaurus, the gigantic pangolin of the Cretaceous?

I was made aware of this not long ago - it kind of looks creepy, but it gave me an idea: Did Spinosaurus walk like a pangolin? That is, with it's hands low to the ground but not touching the ground - so no knuckle walking - and maintaining balance as a biped... This pangolin seems to maintain balance on its hind legs even though, on cursory glance, its centre of mass seems too far forward for that. Spinosaurus is supposed to have had a dense femur, so maybe its centre of gravity was farther back than you'd think from overall proportions. Maybe the sail helped tip the scale back? ...or maybe it was a giant ant-eater? Those giant claws look particularly suited to breaking open termite mounds? Who knows. This is me being silly, but thought it was hilarious enough to share...

The difference between Lion and Tiger skulls

A quick divergence from my usual dinosaurs, and I shall talk about big cats today. This is because to my greatest delight, I had discovered today a wonderful book. It is called The Felidæ of Rancho La Brea (Merriam and Stock 1932, Carnegie Institution of Washington publication, no. 422). As the title suggests it goes into details of felids from the Rancho La Brea, in particular Smilodon californicus (probably synonymous with S. fatalis ), but also the American Cave Lion, Panthera atrox . The book is full of detailed descriptions, numerous measurements and beautiful figures. However, what really got me excited was, in their description and comparative anatomy of P. atrox , Merriam and Stock (1932) provide identification criteria for the Lion and Tiger, a translation of the one devised by the French palaeontologist Marcelin Boule in 1906. I have forever been looking for a set of rules for identifying lions and tigers and ultimately had to come up with a set of my own with a lot of help...

Maximum bite force in Tyrannosaurus rex

I'm on a roll today. Might as well post another. So obviously, this is a Tyrannosaurus rex . It's so famous I'm afraid I don't really know what else to write about. Oh well, I'll just ramble on about bite forces then. T. rex has been the focus of many biomechanical studies. Bite force is no exception. However, as much of a celebrity T. rex is, as far as I'm aware, there have only been two studies so far that have attempted to estimate the bite force of T. rex : Erickson et al. (1996) and Meers (2002). Erickson et al. (1996) had an interesting approach of reproducing bite marks using cast replicas of a T. rex tooth and ramming it into a cow bone. They recorded the forces needed in order to penetrate the bone to different depths. The depths of T. rex bite marks found on a Triceratops ilium was compared to this relationship of puncture depth and forces needed. As a result they found out that a bite force of 6.4 kN were needed in order to to make that bite mar...

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