Just more backbones - as if we don't have enough of them!

Just a quick note to tell all you folks about more backbones that I've prepared. Sometimes the backbones cluster together - must be something about how the water currents & waves sorted items of similar density and shape together. Anyway, I have been working an a small rock about the size of two fists together. This rock has at least 6 backbones, maybe more. We have both centrums and centrums combined with neural arches. Some are rather unusual in the way the rib attachment knobs on the centrums look. I believe that the rib attachment point (on the centrums) migrates from the top  to the bottom of the centrum side as you go from the front of the rib cage to the back. So if you know enough you can tell where the backbone came from. However, I'll leave that to the guys in Alaska to figure out.

Here's two centrums hooked together. I was able to separate these with a bit of care. The big one on the bottom had a short, robust neural arch that was not blade-shaped in cross-section. Instead it is an oval cross-section, pretty robust.

 Here's a view of the prepared centrums I just sent to Alaska. The top group has 3  centrums as well as a nautilus, perched directly on the end of a centrum. Pretty cool! 

 Here's a centrun+neural arch that has the centrum rib attachment knobs on the side blending into the neural arch on the top. Must have come from the forward part of the rib cage. 
  And here is a rib with the neural arch that has no rib attachment knobs. Perhaps this came from the neck, where there are no ribs?

I still have 2 more backbones to finish preparing from this rock, and maybe more hidden inside it. Anyway, that's all there is for now. 

Sincerely, Greg Carr

Bartender - yet another illium - small, please, on the rocks

Three items to report: ilium, lots of backbones, and a 3D printing project!

I have prepared yet another ilium - I think that is about 7 in total that we have found. Most all are different sizes from the different animals. The ilium is one of the three types of pelvic bones in reptiles. They are the ilium, ischium and pubis. In mammals these three bones are fused together to form the pelvis, but in reptiles they are separate bones (6 total, 3 per side). These ilia (plural of ilium) look rather like seal scapula, being a thin fan-shaped bone with a thickened knob at the base of the 'fan'.  Here is a picture of the ilium as it was being prepared, compared with a 3D replica of another one prepared a couple of years ago. The current one is much smaller.

Here it is after being prepared and labeled with the UO number.

And here is a top view, showing how thin it really is. Much of this bone is 1 mm thick or less! It makes it really challenging to prepare them, as you can imagine. However, it is finished and safely up in Alaska with about 135 other bones I have prepared.

I have a whole cluster of backbones I'm working on. So far there are 5, one is a triplet in a tight cluster that I probably won't be able to dissect, as they are too nestled together. Like all the other backbones I have ever found, they are not articulated and not sequential, and probably not even from the same animal. Pictures with the next post. 

I have just begun to do a major 3D printing project. I am going to be printing up 3 complete print sets of all the bones I have prepared. One set will be for me, one for OMSI, one for the U of Oregon. (I figure the U of Alaska can print their own as they have a 3D printer.) I have prepared, scanned and labeled about 135 bones as of this posting. Just printing out the bones directly is about 400 pieces. I figure this will take me about 4-5 months to do  them all. Additionally, about 110 of these bones are not backbones, so there is a corresponding mirror image bone on the other side of the animal. If I print out the mirror images as well I'll end up printing about 700 bones! Lots of printer time! I just print one bone at a time. I've never had a lot of luck printing multiple objects at the same time. It seems that something goes wrong with one print which screws up the other ones as well. And it really doesn't take much longer as a 3 object print takes 3 times as long - it is just the setup that takes longer. 

Here's a picture of the printer in operation. It is just about finished printing  out a limb bone that I have been told is a radius. I like the fact that I can change the color of the LED lighting to match my mood! 

Sincerely, Greg Carr