tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post1758634806459136408..comments2024-03-15T03:20:54.442-04:00Comments on Fossils and Other Living Things: A Different Way to See Fossil Skeleton MountsTony Edgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-4220656596859826872014-09-17T07:39:30.222-04:002014-09-17T07:39:30.222-04:00Also, my difficulty in being sure whether bone was...Also, my difficulty in being sure whether bone was real or not with the Brontotherium was a function of relying solely on my photographs to make that determination.Tony Edgerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-89989002041928942752014-09-16T12:10:04.218-04:002014-09-16T12:10:04.218-04:00Ben:
Thanks for the comment.
I should have inclu...Ben:<br /><br />Thanks for the comment.<br /><br />I should have included some reference to the exchange we had on your blog that included Ralph Chapman (one of those who has staked out a position against mounting real bones), if only to highlight the great posts you have up about the Triceratops posture and mounts (e.g., http://dinosours.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/museums-and-the-triceratops-posture-problem-part-2/).<br /><br />No drilling is clearly an improvement and that's the way the Smithsonian is going with its new T. rex. Matt Carrano has a post on Digging the Fossil Record about prepping and mounting that new skeleton. In it, he writes (and I should have included this quote in my post): "The metal armature that holds the bones in position will be custom-built so that individual bones can be removed if necessary—a crucial feature because the real bones will be on display. In the past, many museum mounts were drilled right into the bones, which damaged them and made them impossible to remove. We still use this technique for casts, but not for the real thing." (http://nmnh.typepad.com/smithsonian_fossils/2013/07/smithsonian-t-rex.html)<br /><br />Unfortunately, I don't know enough about the other risks that real bones run when they are on display (though those risks are real), so I have a hard time figuring out the cost/benefit analysis of such displays. Still, eliminating the clearly destructive procedures used previously to create the mounts is certainly a good thing.<br /><br />TonyTony Edgerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11636818323982123697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5500247109010734075.post-38380615333722780802014-09-16T11:20:35.407-04:002014-09-16T11:20:35.407-04:00Thanks for the shout-out! This is a great post, ab...Thanks for the shout-out! This is a great post, about a topic I too wish more museum visitors were aware of. <br /><br />Assuming your questions about the NMNH brontothere aren't rhetorical, this is actually one of the better mounts for identifying real versus reconstructed bones. Sculpted bones are all painted flat tan, so you can see that most of the ribs, nearly all the spinal processes, several cervical verts, the left horn, and the left zygomatic are all reconstruction. I'm not sure how old this guy is, though...could be either a Gilmore or Gazin-era creation.<br /><br />What do you think about modern mounts in which the fossils are held in individual cradles, with no drilling required (as seen in this photo of Sue http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/Sue_T-Rex_FMNH.JPG)?Benhttp://dinosours.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com