Re: A Paucity of Skeletons

[Jonathon Woolf <jwoolf@erinet.com>]

Scott Robert Ladd wrote:

> My lovely wife is drawing a series of illustrations for a book I'm
> working on; she wants to work from source material (e.g., skeletons) as
> opposed to copying the work of other artists. Is there a good
> encyclopedia of skeletons, or are we going to be making the rounds of the
> museums?
>
> In particular, I need pictures or drawings of a good oviraptor skeleton.
> I've search the Internet high and low (with a special focus on the
> American Museum), and haven't found a single decent skeleton online. My
> library is rather extensive, but the only oviraptor skeleton is in Lucas'
> DINOSAUR: THE TEXTBOOK, and it's incomplete.
>
> Things I need to know:
>
> Different skull shapes (and possible sexual dimorphism in the Crest)
> The existence (or not) of ossified tendons in the tail
> Beak shape
>
> Other dinosaurs of interest include:
>
> Mononykus (and its relatioves)
> Early birds/bird-like dinos
> Ceratosaurus
>
> Thanks for any info.

There's a photograph of a partial _Oviraptor philoceratops_ skeleton in
DISCOVERING DINOSAURS IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, by Mark
Norell, Eugene Gaffney, and Lowell Dingus.  The same book contains a complete
right-side profile of a reconstructed _Mononykus_, and several photos of
various theropods.  All are photos of either actual specimens or of skeletal
reconstructions based on actual specimens.  I think there are also some good
sketches of _Oviraptor_ and _Mononykus_ in Mark Norell's DINOSAURS OF THE
FLAMING CLIFFS.

_Ceratosaurus_ is one of those that doesn't seem to get much publicity these
days.  I don't recall the last time I saw any sort of detailed discussion of
it.

-- JSW