Just a photo-post this time out, with a picture of the skull of Anhanguera piscator from the Museum of Nature in Tokyo. Some may recognise it as the individual written up as a large monograph by Kellner & Tomida, and it is one of the best preserved and most complete 3D skeletons of a pterosaur out there.
This is a photo I took is a kind of half-scientific, half-general interest photo, since while it does show off the anterior teeth at a nice angle, it also shows just how proportionally long and thin the skull is as it disappears into the distance and soft focus. Too often you only see things like this side on, either in scientific illustrations, or life reconstructions which does not really give you the sense of scale or (obviously) three dimensionality to the animal.
I have had special permission to publish this image, so my thanks to Makoto Manabe in Tokyo, and as ever please don’t go using this without permission etc.
Hi Dave. How to I get Makoto Manabe’s permission to use that photo? I used it in a blog post about an Anhanguera piscator model I made out of foam. I placed it side-by-side with my model for comparison here: http://imaginosaurus.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/finished-anhanguera-skull/
His address is manabe AT kahaku.go.jp