Celebrating the 150th birthday of Archaeopteryx with a gift for us all!

The actual 1861, two-paragraph article with the single, controversial sentence pulled out that names Archaeopteryx lithographica.

It was 150 years ago today, on 30 September 1861, that Hermann von Meyer gave the name Archaeopteryx lithographica to the feathered animal that fluttered over the Solnhofen lagoon in Late Jurassic Bavaria. At right is the entire published article…a scant two paragraphs, only one of which is devoted to Archaeopteryx. In that one paragraph he announced the discovery of a feathered skeleton, to go along with the isolated feather that he had announced six weeks earlier. For decades later, scholars argued over his key statement: “For the denomination of the animal I consider the term Archaeopteryx lithographica as appropriate” (the original German sentence is pulled out in the illustration). He named the animal, but not a specimen. Modern rules dictate the designation of a “holotype” specimen that officially bears the name. Should it be the feather, the skeleton, or neither? I discussed this debate a little in my first Archaeopteryx sesquicentennial post, but the result has been that the skeleton—now known as the London Specimen (BMNH 37001)—is the holotype. Happy 150^th Birthday, Archaeopteryx! To celebrate, WitmerLab is launching today a website with five sets of interactive 3D PDFs of skull or skull parts of three Archaeopteryx specimens, including the one von Meyer announced 150 years ago today. It’s all open access and freely downloadable!

The skull of the Eichstätt Archaeopteryx (JM 2257), based on microCT scanning of a high-resolution cast made by Peter Wellnhofer for Witmer.

Read Full Post »

The 3D Alligator: A new anatomical resource for education & research

Alligators are everywhere. They’re team mascots, Transformer toys, actors in Lubriderm commercials (and CSI: Miami), unwanted golfing partners, and even expensive cowboy boots. What might be a surprise is that they’re also “model animals” for scientists, meaning that there are dozens, if not hundreds, of published technical articles on all things gatorly. They’re also commonly used in K-12 and undergraduate classrooms. WitmerLab has been working on American alligators for years, because crocodilians are one of just two living groups (birds are the other) of that great tribe known as archosaurs that includes dinosaurs and pterosaurs. Now, we’re joining with Casey Holliday’s lab at the University of Missouri to present the 3D Alligator, two parallel, complementary, and growing websites that present alligator anatomy in all its 3D digital glory. In both cases, we’re starting with the skull, although we include a few soft-tissue systems that are active areas of research for us (brain, inner ear, sinuses, etc.). Casey’s team presents an adult skull, and we present a wee gatorling, a “day-0” hatchling that was stillborn on its birthday. Sad perhaps, but this little guy is now immortal, because we’re releasing him to the tubes of the interwebz. We also present some of our 3D alligator work on an adult done “way back” in 2008. Check out the WitmerLab 3D Alligator site and the Holliday Lab 3D Alligator site.

Read Full Post »

What’s snood with you? A Thanksgiving turkey surprise.

I had no intention of doing another “holiday post” so soon after our Halloween post, but there’s been surprising interest in one of our YouTube videos. Last year we came up with a CT-scan-based animation of a turkey head which showed the blood vessels; we then tagged the end with “Happy Thanksgiving from the Witmer Lab,” and put it up on our YouTube channel. It got a polite response from friends, racking up, ahem, just 266 views. Without giving it much thought, this year on the day before Thanksgiving I posted the YouTube vid to my Facebook wall and to the WitmerLab Facebook page. What a difference a year makes. In the succeeding four days, the video got over 6300 views, a 23-fold increase over the previous 365 days!

Read Full Post »

Nigersaurus, Bizarre Dinosaurs, and Optimus Prime

The National Geographic Channel ran a documentary called “Bizarre Dinosaurs” way back in October 2009, but just yesterday I got a copy of the DVD, which has inspired this post. I appeared on the show in different contexts, but primarily talking about Nigersaurus, indeed a dinosaur to which the term “bizarre” applies.

Read Full Post »

CT scanning for boneheads #1 – The world’s worst-tasting burrito

A "scan burrito": a crocodile head wrapped in foam sheeting wrapped in alcohol-soaked gauze and then all wrapped in a plastic bag.

One goal of this blog is to share some of our tips and tricks for CT scanning, 3D visualization, and presentation. The inspiration for this post came as I was scooting over to the OU MicroCT Scanning facility on my Vespa with a scan burrito tucked in my pocket. What, you may ask, is a “scan burrito?” A scan burrito is what we call the assembled packet of dead animal that we shove into our microCT scanner. The dead animal du jour was the fleshed-out head of a hatchling false gharial, Tomistoma schlegelii, (USNM 84247), which is an unusual and enigmatic species of crocodilian that today clings tenuously to life in rivers of Malaysia and Sumatra.

Read Full Post »