The atlas/axis complex of Apatosaurus louisae CM 3018 in dorsal and lateral views

(I wrote this post eleven months ago, but for some reason didn’t get around to posting it. Well, now I have. Not now, when I’m writing this sentence, but now, when you’re reading it.) Back in 2019, when Matt and I were at the Carnegie Museum, we got to use a mobile stair platform to get up close and personal with the usually inaccessible cervical sequences of the mounted sauropod holotypes Diplodocus carnegii CM 84 (and lots of other specimens) and Apatosaurus louisae CM 3018. Mike getting maybe a bit too up close and personal with Apatosaurus louisae CM 3018. As we’ve noted before, there are not a lot of dorsal views of sauropod vertebrae in the literature. While we were there, we were able to nab some of the anterior part of the neck of Apatosaurus, and from these I have prepared this composite image: Fused atlas/axis complex of Apatosaurus louisae holotype CM 3018 in dorsal and right lateral views. In lateral view, the posterior portion of the skull is shown, obscuring the…