RE: Ligabuesaurus leanzai

[mike@miketaylor.org.uk (Mike Taylor)]

Tim Williams writes:
 >> Er.  In what way?  The cervicals look pretty darned
 >> non-brachiosaurid to me.
 > 
 > It ain't much...
 > 
 > "Ventrally, the diapophysis has two centrodiapophyseal laminae that
 > reach the centrum, surrounding a wide, deep medial cavity.  Another
 > wide, triangle-shaped cavity is defined by the posterior
 > centrodiapophyseal and postzygodiapophyseal laminae, resembling
 > that observed in the cervical vertebrae of _Sauroposeidon proteles_
 > and _Brachiosaurus brancai_ (Wedel et al., 2000b)."

No, it ain't much :-)

It's essentially the observation that one lamina (the PCDL) behaves
similarly in _Ligabuesaurus_ to how it does in brachiosaurs.  Against
that, consider the anteroposterior compression, transverse widening
and posterodorsal inclination of the neural spine, the breadth of the
diapophyses, the robustness of both diapophyses and parapophyses,
their directly lateral orientation, the broadly separated
zygapophyses, the absence of the characteristically brachiosaurid
anterior projection of the prezygapophyses, the increased dorsal
curvature of the centrum's ventral border, the median prespinal
lamina, the broad intraprezygapophyseal laminae, the broad, flat
horizontal-lamina complex ...  *gasp* *gasp*

Well.  It ain't a brachiosaur :-)

 _/|_    ___________________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor  <mike@miketaylor.org.uk>  http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
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