Re: Brachiosaur spines?

["Peter Von Sholly" <von.rex@gte.net>]

However, according to Don Glut, there is some controversy over what these
spines actually are.  It is evidently not accepted across the paleo-board
that these are really what they are purported to be- and that even if they
are, it is not reasonable to assume that all sauropods had them.  This is
second hand info with me, are there any sauropod experts who could weigh in
on this?

----------
> From: Gigi Babcock or Ralph Miller III <gbabcock@best.com>
> To: dinosaur@usc.edu
> Subject: Re: Brachiosaur spines?
> Date: Friday, March 06, 1998 8:20 AM
> 
> 
> 
>  Steve, "The Armadillo with the Mask" <armadilo@daft.com> wrote:
>  > Paging through the "Complete Dinosaur" at breakfast this
>  > morning(Wonderful
>  > book BTW, all of you who had a manus in it) and came
>  > across GSPaul's piccys of Brachiosaur herds with spines going down the
>  > neck. This is the first time I've seen a brachiosaur or possibly any
>  > sauropod rendered with these. Obviously Greg wouldn't have rendered
them
>  > this way if there wasn't SOME evidence for it. Is this a relatively
>  > recent discovery or is it more like the Parasauroplophus neck-flap?
>  
>  Well, I hope you've got a copy of Currie and Padian's _Encyclopedia of
>  Dinosaurs_, because this book includes Stephen A. Czerkas' entry on
> "Skin."
>   There you will find that these spines, which lack bony cores, were
>  recovered from "an undescribed sauropod resembling _Barosaurus_ and
>  _Diplodocus_."  The article includes a skeletal reconstruction of the
>  diplodocid (with spines), a photograph of one of the dermal spine
fossils,
>  and an illustration of a number of these spines from a variety of
angles. 
>  The skeletal reconstruction had also been published in _Science News_,
>  2/20/93, page 127.  The _Science News_ article states that Czerkas
>  collected fossilized skin impressions and dermal spines from the
sauropod
>  in a Wyoming quarry in 1990, and describes the skin and spines (which
> would
>  have been up to 18" long in life).  _Science News_ also refers the
reader
>  to the December 1992 issue of _Geology_.  The "Skin" article includes
the
>  following reference:
>  
>  Czerkas, S. A. (1994). The history and interpretation of sauropod skin
>  impressions.  In _Aspects of Sauropod Paleobiology_ (M. G. Lockley, V.
F.
>  dos Santos, C. A. Meyer, and A. P. Hunt, Eds.), _Gaia No. 10. (Lisbon,
>  Portugal).
>  
>  The absence of the exceptionally rare dermal spine fossils in other
>  sauropod specimens doesn't by itself prove whether they would have
sported
>  the spines in life or not, but in the absence of evidence disproving
such
>  spines, Gregory S. Paul has taken the trouble to update a number of his
>  illustrations by adding the spines.
>  
>  Ralph Miller III <gbabcock@best.com>