I have just finished prepping out a really great pelvic girdle bone - probably a Ischium. Reptiles have 3 bones on each side making up the pelvic girdle. In mammals these are fused into the the pelvis, but in reptiles they are the Ischium, Illium and the Pubis. It is the second largest bone I've prepared, second only to the skull. We have had another one, but that one was partially broken and considerably smaller. This one is very large, about 14cm (5.5 inches) long.
So here are the two bones (brown one is a copy) for comparison. The new bone is much larger and very robust. It still shows the typical hollow ends, indicating the bone has a cartilage end, not a bone end. The brown band across the large end is a crack in the rock, filled with calcite. I've decided to leave it as-is, though with 4-6 hours work I could take it out and glue the two pieces back together.
So here it is in all 4 side views.
Here's the end view of the large end - really massive!
Here's the smaller end.
Look at this great notch just below the flange on the large end!
Sincerely, Greg Carr
