Saturday, November 29, 2014

THE JANE DIARIES, ENTRY #23

All that's left standing between me and the gastralia.

November 28, 2014
10:43 am: Late arrival, partly on account to bad weather, a stop for cash, and another for food. Back in collections to finish up Hemal arch H! Flurries and unsafe roads at Kenosha, but the roads cleared up halfway to Beloit on the ’43.
11:26: Done with Hemal arch H; now moving on to Hemal arch I!
12:12: Done with Hemal arch I – I’m making slightly better time with these; I will now start Hemal arch J!
12:47: Back to work; touched base with IL, who arrived just after I picked up arch J.
1:28: Done with Hemal arch J, now on to arch K!
1:45: Time for lunch.
2:47: Back from lunch; didn’t mean to take so long, but I stopped off at a used bookstore to see if they had a copy of Collin’s French-English Dictionary – and they did! I seen that IL and WI removed the final hemal arches for me, so there is seven to go, including Hemal arch K that I started right before I left to eat.
3:21: All right – done with Hemal arch K, now I move on to arch L!
3:25: Dammit – MW just crashed again upon pasting a block of text.
4:07: Just cleared Hemal arch L! Now I start the golden arch, namely M.
4:41: Just finished Hemal arch M! I will start arch N for a few minutes before I have to pack up and leave before the place closes at 5:00pm!
4:48: time to pack up. After this arch, there’s only three to go, and then the gastralia! 548 pages reached.

THE JANE DIARIES, ENTRY #22

Framed and mounted, but the Science isn't done.
November 27, 2014
~1:00 pm: resumed adding characters from Carr (1999).
1:25: At the jugal in the Taxonomic Differences section. This section has been misunderstood in the literature (e.g., Currie, 2003) and at the time I should have recognized that possibility and made repair; it would have been a straightforward correction to make.
1:47: Just reached the postorbital of Carr (1999)! Brief break.
1:55: Back to work!
2:41: Reached the braincase section of the Taxonomic Differences section; I need a short break.
2:52: For some reason I am stymied with what to do with the braincase section – this structure is entirely missing from Jane, but it is entirely present in the Cleveland skull and in adults. Do I contrast the Cleveland skull from them? That does make the most sense, as long as it is not redundant with Carr (1999) or W&R (2009, 2010).
3:01: Hunger is tearing at me; I must eat something now.
3:13: Back to work!
3:37: Time to wrap up.

References cited

Carr, T. D.  1999.  Craniofacial ontogeny in Tyrannosauridae (Dinosauria, Theropoda). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 19: 497-520.
Currie, P. J. 2003. Cranial anatomy of tyrannosaurid dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta, Canada. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 48(2): 191-226.
Witmer, L. M. and R. C. Ridgely. 2009. New insights into the brain, braincase, and
ear region of Tyrannosaurus (Dinosauria, Theropoda), with implications for sensory organization and behavior. The Anatomical Record 292:1266-1296.
Witmer LM, and R. C. Ridgely. 2010. The Cleveland tyrannosaur skull (Nanotyrannus or Tyrannosaurus): New findings based on CT scanning, with special reference to the braincase. Kirtlandia 57: 61–81.


Thursday, November 27, 2014

THE JANE DIARIES, ENTRY #21

The Jackstraws of Brochu; they are not as simple as they look.

November 26, 2014
9:11: Back in collections to resume the description of the fourth hemal arch!
9:34: Done with hemal arch D! Now, on with hemal arch E!
10:16: MW just crashed again as I went to paste a block of text. Very frustrating, as usual.
10:23: Done with hemal arch E! I have to wait for WI to arrive so that he can remove more arches from the mount in the gallery, so I will change gears and work on the gastralia.
11:36: Just finished arranging the medial gastralia segments into a left and right set.
12:06: Off for lunch.
12:45: Back from lunch (eggs benedict, hash browns and coffee). I will set the gastralia to the side and resume with the hemal arches, which WI brought down shortly before I left for lunch.
1:46: Done with Hemal arch F; now on to G!
1:55: Taking a short break.
2:03: Back to work!
2:45: done with Hemal arch G; now, on to H! Finally – an armature that can be removed!
2:53: Time for a short break.
3:03: Break over.
3:26: Time to take a break from writing and start photographing the arches!
4:01: Done taking photos of hemal arches A-G.
4:05: I am pretty wiped out, so I’m going to wrap up now; 526 pages reached.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

THE JANE DIARIES, ENTRY #20

The first four hemal arches. A plea to those who attach armatures onto small bones: MAKE SURE THEY CAN COME OFF!!!


November 25, 2014
My reply to Jaime Headden’s comment from a while ago:
Hi Jaime – I agree that leaving the internal color-coding intact is a good idea, but I can’t see a journal accepting a polychrome manuscript.
In this vein, the more I think about it, the journal format is utterly unsuited for extensive, comparative anatomical descriptions. The several works that I have in progress on various tyrannosaurids would best be published as a series printed on poster sized paper of each bone in multiple views with a hierarchy of labels that corresponds to, say, individual variation, species characters, supraspecific (i.e., phylogenetically informative) characters, ontogenetic variation, and so on. With regard to the actual text description, I think there is no excuse for a paragraph-length treatment of a single bone. Pages are required.
But that won’t happen, unless I could fund it myself. I don’t think peer review would be an issue.
So why pen such extensive works? Who cares? We are at a point in history where we can’t ignore the extensive literature behind nearly every subordinate lineage of dinosaurs, the lists and lists of characters from comparative phylogenetic studies, descriptions of ontogeny, the identifications of osteological correlates through the Extant Phylogenetic Bracket, the results of geometric morphometric studies and finite element modeling, and so on. We are in the position to bring about a new Golden Age of rigorous, comprehensive, and useful descriptive works that harken back to – and exceed – the monographs of Cuvier, Owen, Mivart, Pycraft, Leidy, Cope, Marsh, von Huene, Nopsca, Osborn, Lambe, Gilmore, Dollo, Lull, Janensch, Parks, Hatcher, and others.
For those reasons it is always a disappointment for me to see excellent specimens published where the images are slightly large than postage stamps and the article is a mere 70 pages long or less. For evolutionary anatomy, economy of space has an unacceptably steep scientific cost because it promotes superficiality. The time has come for us to turn our course away from the data diluting rut in which we are stuck.
9:06: Back at my desk in collections. Time to resume the astragalus.
9:27: Dammit, MW just crashed again upon pasting a sentence; I lost my first diary entry of the day; I’ve written a brief approximation. Luckily none of the Jane ms was lost. I have to move text around nearly continuously to improve the text, so it is something that I cannot avoid. Part of the pain is waiting for MW to load the entire ~500-page file, which takes some minutes, and I’m using a MacBook Pro!
9:45: Done with the calcaneum; now I will proceed onto the distal tarsals, starting with Brochu (2003) and then Brusatte et al. (2012).
10:08: The right crus needs to go on display; I’ll take a brief break from distal tarsal 4 to photograph the fibula.
10:22: Done taking photos of the fibula; back to distal tarsal 4!
10:30: O.K. – done with Brochu (2003); now, on to Brusatte et al. (2012)!
10:49: I am done with Brusatte et al. (2012) for the distal tarsals; now I must see if I started describing the hemal arches in the ms.
10:55: I just realized there’s a bit more of the tibia that I can do.
10:57: Looks like I already took care of it!
11:15: I just finished photographing the distal tarsals.
11:28: While IL and WI are in the gallery putting back the crus and retrieving the hemal arches, I saved the images of Jane that I have on the camera card into the Jane image folder that I have in my computer for later sorting. It also gives me a synoptic guide to what I’ve already photographed. The camera battery is charging. The ms is presently 498 pages long.
12:11: Well into writing up the first hemal arch.
~12:30: Depart for lunch.
~1:20: Back to work!
2:04: Done with Hemal arch A.
2:43: A nontrivial observation - the armature that is attached to the hemal arches is so tight that the bones cannot be freed from their miniature gibbets.
3:10: A brief soda/pop break.
3:21: Back to work!
4:09: Brief break.
4:19: Back to work! Hemal arch C.
4:59: Tim to wrap up for the day - 510 pages reached.
References cited
Brochu, C. A. 2003. Osteology of Tyrannosaurus rex: insights from a nearly complete skeleton and high-resolution computed tomographic analysis of the skull. Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir 7: 1-138.
Brusatte, S. L., M. A. Norell, T. D. Carr, G. M. Erickson, J. R. Hutchinson, A. M. Balanoff, G. B. Bever, J. N. Choiniere, P. J. Makovocky, & X. Xu. 2010. Tyrannosaur paleobiology: new research on ancient exemplar organisms. Science 329:1481.

Monday, November 24, 2014

THE JANE DIARIES, #19

At the end of the day for the exhausted tyrannosaurid worker...the Corporate Suite!

November 24, 2014
Terrible nightmare last night:
I was reading through a fat, soft cover volume of student literary work, evidently in a university setting. The cover had a close-up newsprint image - so close up that the dots could be seen - of an elephant facing left. In boldface and uppercase letters the word “ELEPHANT” slanted up to the right, below the elephant.
I recall flipping through the book and settling upon several exceptionally well written poems, evidently written by different authors, on widely separate pages. They didn’t belong in ELEPHANT; they were beautiful, but they weren't writing - they only resembled writing, but they were the message of ELEPHANT.
Then the lightbulb flashed on: “They are all obscure aspects of the Cthulhu mythos!” I exclaimed to my companion – a man that I did not recognize, but clearly we were deeply involved in tracking this intrigue together. “I know-“, he replied. We turned back to the bizarre leaves of ELEPHANT as if they concealed the jaws and teeth that bit into everything we had at stake.
We rapidly discussed in breathless agreement all of the common threads that we had independently observed in the mysterious writings that somehow involved us beyond our immediate and tortured curiosity, and before I knew it his face was above me, pulled back like a wolf tugging a carcass into it's first rip and his hands were around my neck and his face was as bright as a star and by the throat he forced me to the floor and I was atwist in a murder grip.
I screamed, “THIS ISN’T RIGHT - THIS MAKES NO SENSE!” from the world of alteration into the world of night, where I lay panting like a darted stag.

10:39: I had a late start leaving home today (around 8:25) and I just arrived at the Burpee Museum about 10 minutes ago. The primary consolation is that I am here for three days in a row so that I can (hopefully) wrap up the last of the osteological descriptions. Now to finish Dorsal rib C!
11:28: I am done with rib C, but the ventral quarter of the rib broke off and needs repair – it is not at all a good feeling when damage happens to a fossil. I am now comparing the description of trunk ribs from Brochu (2003) with what I’ve written to make sure I haven’t missed anything.
12:08: I know I’ve arrived much later today than usual, but I am very hungry; I have to leave for lunch. Snow has been pouring down, so it’ll be a stressful drive.
1:02: I am back from lunch! I'm resuming with Brochu (2003).
2:14: I am done with the ribs; now, on to the fibula.
3:06: I am done with the fibula for now, in comparison with Brochu (2003), but I am working with the right bone, which is missing its ventral half. I will have to get the left from from exhibit to complete this section. Now I will flesh out the description of the tibia and proximal tarsals based on comparison with that in Brusatte et al. (2012).
3:57: I am done with the tibia section of Brusatte et al. (2012), now on to the astragalus.
4:48 pm: I am wrapping up for the day; I stopped on the last page of the Brusatte et al. (2012) description of the astragalus, there's about a column and a half to go for that bone. 495 pages reached.

References cited
Brochu, C. A. 2003. Osteology of Tyrannosaurus rex: insights from a nearly complete skeleton and high-resolution computed tomographic analysis of the skull. Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir 7: 1-138.
Brusatte, S. L., M. A. Norell, T. D. Carr, G. M. Erickson, J. R. Hutchinson, A. M. Balanoff, G. B. Bever, J. N. Choiniere, P. J. Makovocky, & X. Xu. 2010. Tyrannosaur paleobiology: new research on ancient exemplar organisms. Science 329:1481.

THE JANE DIARIES, ENTRY #18


November 23, 2014
10:26 am: Later start than usual this morning; resuming with the taxonomic variation section of Carr (1999).
10:51: Time for a quick restroom break; as I proceed through this article, I am quickly learning how important it is for me to establish the adult conditions of features, in addition to the juvenile characters.
10:59: Back to the task at hand, but not before setting out the bust of Darwin on my desk.
12:07: Lunch.
1:11: Maxilla, resumed.
1:28: Maxillary characters done, now on with the nasal!
1:51: Now, the lacrimal!
1:56: This is a huge, exhuasting task; I have to take a break from this for a while; pausing to read from Charles Darwin’s Autobiographies.

References cited
Carr, T. D.  1999.  Craniofacial ontogeny in Tyrannosauridae (Dinosauria, Theropoda). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 19: 497-520.
Darwin, Charles. 2002. Autobiographies. Penguin Classics: 132 pp.

THE JANE DIARIES, ENTRY #17


November 22, 2014
9:30 am: Resume with Carr (1999) on the maxilla; starting at 468 pages.
10:15: Done with the maxilla, now starting the nasal!
10:41: Done with the nasal, now on with the lacrimal!
11:17: Finished with the lacrimal; now, on to the jugal!
11:46: Done with the jugal, now starting on the postorbital!
12:06: Time for lunch; 472 pages reached.
1:22 pm: Addition of Carr (1999) characters is resumed.
1:34: Done with the postorbital, and skipping over the braincase characters since those were already taken care of for CMNH 7541 in Carr (1999), and the braincase is not preserved in BMR P2002.4.1. So, straight to the palate and starting with the vomer!
1:50: Dammit – MW just crashed when I attempted to paste in a section of cut text.
1:54: Now, on to the surangular!
2:24: Just started the prearticular!
2:31: Now the dentary!
2:34: Dammit –another crash. This is a terrible program.
2:48: Made it to the end of the ontogenetic variation in A. libratus, I am now at the section on taxonomic variation.
2:53: I have to take a break.
3:10: Back to the premaxilla.
3:20: On to the maxilla.
3:33: Stop.
3:52: Resume.
4:04 pm: Stop.

References cited
Carr, T. D.  1999.  Craniofacial ontogeny in Tyrannosauridae (Dinosauria, Theropoda). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 19: 497-520.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

TYRANNOETHICS 3

Yes - that's a cupcake; for explanation see text.

‘The Amazing Traveling Dinosaur Show’ is a self described “Natural History Museum & gift shop on wheels”; what matters is that their collection includes a real “sub adult Tyrannasaurus rex skull”. Yes, that’s how they spell it.
I first heard of the specimen a couple of years ago from a colleague who casually mentioned a “real juvenile T. rex skull that is privately owned in Calgary”. That was rumor, but now the specimen has surfaced in the hands of a private company that is based in British Columbia.
The specimen is nicknamed “Cupcake”, and the photographs on their website show that it includes a virtually complete cranium and both mandibular rami. It is, of course, for sale. I can only hope that it finds its way into a real museum collection, where it rightfully belongs.
Of note, their site also includes photographs of an adult T. rex nicknamed “King Kong”, which passed through their hands as “one of our past projects”. Regrettably, this specimen is also privately owned; in recent months it has traveled widely, where it was briefly on display in October at a mineral show in Munich, and before that in June 2014 it made an appearance at a gem and jewelry trade show in Hong Kong.
What follows is the List of Shame – a tally of privately owned Tyrannosaurus rex specimens that Science cannot touch. In no particular order (the number of juveniles and subadults is most distressing):
1. Cupcake: subadult skull and jaws; almost certainly collected from Montana; owned by The Amazing Traveling Dinosaur Show, British Columbia; it will be on display in Victoria, BC in December, 2014.
2. King Kong: adult skull and skeleton; collected from Montana; privately owned by an individual person; a project of The Amazing Traveling Dinosaur Show; was on public display at the Mineralientage Munchen, at the Munich Trade Fair Center Oct 24-25 2014; in June 2014 it was briefly displayed at a gem and jewelry trade show in Hong Kong.
3. Tinker: subadult skull and skeleton; collected in South Dakota in 1998; privately owned; presently on display in an art gallery in Abu Dhabi; on sale for $10 million; found associated with the adult specimen Regina.
4. Regina: adult; found associated with Tinker; the pair is for sale between $12 and $14 million.
5 & 6. Russell: composite of two adults; skull and skeleton; collected from Montana in 2012; offered for sale at the Bonham’s auction in November, 2013; it was on display at a 2013 Gem and Mineral show (Denver or Tucson).
7. Dueling tyrannosaurid: subadult skull and skeleton; collected from Montana in 2006; offered for sale at the Bonham’s auction in November, 2013; associated with a ceratopsian; owned by CK Productions.
8. Baby bob: juvenile skull and skeleton; collected from Montana in 2013; privately owned by the collector; specimen is for sale.
9. Samson: adult skull and skeleton; collected from South Dakota in 1987; sold in 2009 to a private individual.
To those of you who own these specimens: You are in an excellent position to make a grand contribution to Science and education. Set a good example and raise the bar of conduct by donating these specimens to a natural history collection at an accredited museum or university. Please do not extort Science by demanding buckets of money; you don't even need to ask for a dime in order to expand scientific knowledge and benefit civilization through a great act of generosity. Reap that glory.

You can choose to do the right thing.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

THE JANE DIARIES, ENTRY #16



Video caption: The thresholds a researcher takes for granted.


November 18, 2014

9:54 am: Back at my desk in the Burpee collections; time to wrap up Dorsal rib #3.
10:17: I've just been asked by IL to switch to the tibia and fibula, since there is a member’s event happening later and he wants those bones back on the mount. Will I ever see dorsal rib C to completion?!
12:00 pm: Ready for lunch.
12:31: Leaving for lunch; 460 pages reached.
1:52: Back to beefing up the description of the tibia after Brochu (2003). This is an excellent work that I have come to appreciate, respect, and admire greatly during the course of this project and the Two Medicine tyrannosaurine monograph. It sets a high standard.
3:48: Done writing up the calcaneum; 467 pages reached. Time to photograph the tibiotarsus before leaving today.
4:15 pm: Finished taking pictures of the tibiotarsus. There's a little time left for Dorsal rib C.
4:26: Losing steam.
4:32: I reached page 468, and wrote most of the description of the shaft of the rib. Following that are the osteological correlates to describe.
References cited
  Brochu, C. A. 2003. Osteology of Tyrannosaurus rex: insights from a nearly complete skeleton and high-resolution computed tomographic analysis of the skull. Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir 7: 1-138.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

THE JANE DIARIES, ENTRY #15

Success - I added the last of the Holtz characters on this day!


November 16, 2014
9:47 am: Resuming work on Holtz (2001); starting with a page count of 451.
11:00 am: I’m at character 106 – only 6 characters to go! Page count – 455.
11:10 am: I’ve added the last of Holtz (2001)! Now, I’ll continue with those of Carr (1999). I realized a while ago that after that source, I still have to add those of Larson (2008, 2013), which will add a few days of work. However, the ms won’t be complete without them.
List of things to do: (1) Carr, 1999; (2) Larson, 2008; (3) Larson, 2013; (4) loose threads; (5) ribs; (6) hemal arches; (7) gastralia.
11:38: Added several more maxilla characters from Carr (1999), then stopped.
11:56: resumed.
~12:05 pm: Stopped.
2:07 pm: started again on account of being locked out of the suite where my office is located; I’ve been waiting 20 minutes for security to “send over an officer when one becomes available”; this is absurd.
2:18 pm. Heading back upstairs to call security again. When I first arrived, I had nearly 2.5 hours for grading a mountain of work, now it’s less than 2.0.
References cited
Carr, T.D.  1999.  Craniofacial ontogeny in Tyrannosauridae (Dinosauria, Theropoda).          Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 19: 497-520.
Holtz, T.R., Jr.  2001.  The phylogeny and taxonomy of the Tyrannosauridae.
            In Mesozoic Vertebrate Life. Edited by D. H. Tanke and K. Carpenter. Indiana
University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana pp. 64-83.
Larson, P. 2008. Variation and sexual dimorphism in Tyrannosaurus rex; pp. 102-128 in
P. Larson, and K. Carpenter (eds.) Tyrannosaurus rex, the Tyrant King. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
Larson, P. 2013. The case for Nanotyrannus; pp. 14-53 in J. Michael Parrish, Ralph E. Molnar, Philip J. Currie, and Eva B. Koppelhus (Eds.) Tyrannosaurid Paleobiology. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

THE JANE DIARIES, ENTRY #14


November 15, 2014
1:20 pm: In the basement, I resumed adding characters from Holtz (2001), starting with character 30 - the length of the pubic boot relative to the vertical height of the bone. Coffee at hand.
After that, I discovered that I had already added the rest of the pubic, ischium, fibula, and metatarsal characters. It looks as if I had made it to the end of the list of “Synapomorphies for Tyrannosauridae”, with a couple of exceptions; so now I proceed with “Tyrannosaurid ingroup characters”, at character 40.
2:14: I am at character 58 and the page count is 448.
3:30: Stopping at character 80 (the ratio of cervical centrum length to centrum height); I need to collate cervical centra data into a comparative table for this one.

References cited
 
Holtz, T.R., Jr.  2001.  The phylogeny and taxonomy of the Tyrannosauridae.
            In Mesozoic Vertebrate Life. Edited by D. H. Tanke and K. Carpenter. Indiana
University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana pp. 64-83.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

THE JANE DIARIES, ENTRY #13

What if the line on the map had put Jane on private land? This cover is fictional, but that is not always the case for tyrannosaurids (and other dinosaurs) found on the wrong side of property boundaries in the United States.


November 12, 2014
Thoughts while watching the congratulatory speeches on the thrilling Philae comet landing:
Imagine if this specimen (BMR P2002.4.1) was not found on lands managed by the BLM.
Imagine if commercial collectors found it on private land.
Imagine a mentality where money is more valued than knowledge.
Imagine a system of law structured by possessive individualism.
Imagine if the specimen was flogged by an amateur member of a scientific society that condemns the sale of specimens into private ownership.
Imagine if pseudoscience was part and parcel of the public sales pitch.
Imagine if the media could not distinguish between charlatan and expert.
Imagine if the asking price was so high that no university, museum, or consortium acting in the public trust could afford it.
Imagine if the specimen had gone to public auction.
Imagine a colleague awkwardly neutral on the gavel.
Imagine a catalog glossier than any scientific journal, and images more beautiful than is seen in any peer-reviewed article.
Imagine the enchantment, and the desire to possess, combined with the means to obtain.
Imagine if the auction had failed, and the specimen went back into the limbo of private ownership for an indefinite duration.
Imagine if the auction had succeeded, and the specimen found itself privately owned in Europe and displayed in an art gallery in the Middle East.
Imagine the ignorant adoration, leaving information content at absolute zero.
Imagine the warp thrown into history by that quantum lobotomization of knowledge.
Imagine the specimen secure in a data generative furrow.
Imagine greed extinct.
Imagine scientific literacy.
Imagine if commercial collectors and private hoarders left science alone, tomorrow.
Imagine defeat.

Appendix. Today’s (Nov. 11, 2014) notes of advancement.
7:15 am: Left home.
8:45: Restroom break in south Beloit.
9:06: Food break on East Riverside Boulevard.
9:40: Back to Dorsal rib G.
~10.30: IL and CO bring down the tibiotarsus of Jane, which requires much needed expansion in the monograph; brief chat with IL about plans during the Thanksgiving break, where I’ll stay for several days to wrap up the descriptive aspect of the monograph.
11:27: Done with Dorsal rib G!
11:30: Started on Dorsal rib H! (However, Dorsal rib C still remains to be described).
11:45: Ravenous hunger has driven me up to the vending lounge for a Doc 360; I need to eat a bigger breakfast next time.
12:02: Leave for lunch with IL and CO.
1:37: Return from lunch.
2:01: Briefly locked out after using the rest room, was able to get a set of keys from the front desk.
2:44: Done with Dorsal rib H! Now on to Dorsal rib C, the longest of the series.
4:00: I need a break from writing up the ribs; time to change gears and start photographing the ribs. Rib A, right: anterior, posterior, medial, lateral; three each. Left rib A, as for the right side. Using my calipers as the scale bar, since I left both my scale bars in my backpack. Two close ups of medial foramen of the left rib. Left rib B in anterior, posterior, lateral, medial.
4:31: Packing up to leave.

Monday, November 10, 2014

THE JANE DIARIES, ENTRY #12

While away in the UK two weeks ago, I was able to push the Jane ms forward over a couple of days by starting the process of adding the ontogenetic characters from Carr (1999). Each day over the following week I was in the collections of the British Museum of Natural History obtaining data from the type specimen of Dynamosaurus impersiosus, and a referred specimen of Albertosaurus libratus for the ontogenetic data sets of an in-progress comparative study of tyrannosaurid ontogeny that I've had in the works for some time.


October 26, 2014
Northampton, England
8:57 pm-9:24 pm. Started adding Carr (1999) characters: pmx.
9:43-9:50 pm. Pmx.

October 27, 2014
Northampton, England
4:20 pm-4:34 pm. Pmx, mx.
6:00 pm-6:15 pm. Mx.
6:23 pm-6:31 pm. Mx.
10:34 pm-11:01 pm. Mx.

References cited
Carr, T.D.  1999.  Craniofacial ontogeny in Tyrannosauridae (Dinosauria, Theropoda). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 19: 497-520.