There is simply so much I can say about the dinosaur hall of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, but I don’t want to end up with one monstrous post so I’ll be breaking it up. There is a great deal to commend this, with details of the signs, layout, murals, dioramas and more all worthy of comment, in addition to the huge number of specimens and casts on display. So given all of the things that will be coming, for now I’ll just leave you with these two images of much of the Jurassic section of the hall featuring Diplodocus, Apatosaurus and Allosaurus.
I love the way that angle of the Apatosaurus louisae necks shows that the left cervical ribs alone accounted for more of the necks diameter than the centra and spines put together. It shows just how stupidly too thin the neck is in most traditional restorations of Apatosaurus. (Happily, more recent restorations have got much better at this, though they still shy away from full craziness.)
You should come with spoiler alerts Mike! I had a post planned on this very issue. ;) Ah well, still have other photos of said cervicals to show off this breadth in it’s full splendor.
I spent the last three days in the Carnegie Natural History Library looking over the Holland papers, shame I missed you.
By the way, if anyone ever wants to look at the Holland papers, they better be quick. They’re in an atrocious condition, particularly the (very interesting) press clippings collection.
Very interesting, I must go to Natural History Museum.