I was reminded by Mike Taylor's recent post, noting that a Camarasaurus vertebrae seems to have a ceratopsian frill growing out of it, that I had had the exact same thought when I saw 'Max'. Max is a diplodocid (identified as Apatosaurus but I have my doubts) found by the crew at the Saurier Museum in Aathal. However this time the 'frilloid' process is composed of the two postzygapophyses and the perforate interpostzygapophyseal lamina. Incidentally the interpostzyg laminae of most of Max's cervicals are similarly perforate. It is a real feature, not caused by damage - weird huh?
4 comments:
Weird indeed! Thanks for the h/t by the way.
But help me out with the interpretation. is this a cervical we're looking at, in more or less dorsal view with anterior to the left? In which case we can see both anterodorsalmedially inclined prezyg factes, with ?the postzyg ramus of the previous cervical poking in between them?
If that's right, then this is too weird for words. Do you have photos from other angles?
Your interpretation is spot on. It is cervical 8 in dorsal view, with the anterior to the left (and the postzygs of ce 7 interceding between the prezyg facets). Max's neck is really bizarre but most of the rest of his anatomy is standard diplodocid. I was orifginally going to write him up for publication but wasn't sure how to proceed given that he is privately owned. Then I moved to SA and it all fell by the wayside. Now publications on the Saurier Museum material have started to appear in any case (e.g. baby Toni) so maybe I should dust off the old files and re-establish contact with Max's owners. Or perhaps someone is already at work on the project?
Hi Adam. Is Max the specimen originally rumoured to be another Eobrontosaurus?
Yep, I think i started that rumor myself......
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