Wednesday, November 6, 2013

The Bonham's tyrannosaurid auction: what this paleontologist stands to lose

The right dentary of MOR 1125 in medial view, with labels of 31 of the 111 characters that I document for a single dentary bone. Abbreviation: Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, MT.

I also take 219 measurements from one dentary. That's a total of 330 items of information for a single dentary, and 660 items that I could obtain from a specimen such as the dueling tyrannosaurid or Russell the T. rex that has both jaws preserved. How much information does my database stand to be deprived by the sale of just one entire skull to a private individual? The answer makes my mind reel and my disposition deflate.

As an indication of the volume of data that I collect, the numbers given in the table below only pertain to bones; excluded are features and measurements of composite structures (composed of more than one bone) such as the skull, braincase, and lower jaw. The list also excludes the features and measurements of the dentition (although I do gather data from composite structures and dentition).


Bone
# characters
# measurements
total
Premaxilla
61
62
123
Nasals
109
76
185
Maxilla
256
327
583
Lacrimal
276
134
410
Jugal
201
85
286
Postorbital
171
52
223
Squamosal
118
55
173
Quadratojugal
60
35
95
Quadrate
79
28
107
Prefrontal
9
5
14
Frontal
128
85
213
Parietal
59
42
101
Supraoccipital
16
13
29
Otoccipital
40
41
81
Laterosphenoid
36
11
47
Baisphenoid
62
36
98
Prootic
14
15
29
Mesethmoid
2
11
13
Orbitosphenoid
0
5
5
Basioccipital
59
41
100
Vomer
16
23
39
Palatine
106
33
139
Pterygoid
20
26
46
Ectopterygoid
66
40
106
Epipterygoid
18
6
24
Articular
36
14
50
Surangular
57
47
104
Angular
16
13
29
Prearticular
9
19
28
Intercoronoid
7
2
9
Splenial
16
23
39
Dentary
111
219
330
Grand total for half a skull
2,234
1,624
3,858
Grand total for complete skull
4,468
3,248
7,716


2 comments:

  1. That's quite interesting.
    Anyways, can you post your opinion about recent Lythronax paper in the future?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi,

    I will post my opinion on that paper in a couple of days!

    ReplyDelete