Bonadonna's Diplodocus

All I can think when I see that cute face is this:
MOOOOOO!

No seriously, that's a true triumph. And I can't help but wonder if those teeth were useful in grooming.

Word is that Greg Paul has a big new volume of fossil art on the way, so perhaps this will include a "how to" and "how not to" section.

Davide is a great artist and friend!
You can see his _Deinonychus_ model here:
http://theropoda.blogspot.com/2009/10/rinascimento-italiano-davide-bona…

Is that poster available in readable format anywhere online?

Andreas, there's a larger jpg at Andrea Cau's blog:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6fVePgcYTJc/SuSX6E9jC1I/AAAAAAAACR8/Dfopm9wP2…

oh... I almost forgot to take offense at this:
"The rise of CG means that a great deal of dinosaur 'art' out there in the marketplace today is terrible or execrable".

I wager to say: CG brings more benefits than draw-backs, particularly to issues very dear to paleoart - and 3D in particular - such as consistency of volume through perspective changes, animations and poses driven or verifiable via anatomical foundations, etc. Foremost, they bring efficiency to a market which is not as financially rewarding as is the pure entertainment or advertising markets.
That these things aren't common-day has to do with the use of the tools, not the tools themselves. Gregory Paul's advice drove me to 'pay my dues' and make a skeletal reconstruction as point of departure for a life reconstruction. He spoke of 2D, but I figured - what's good for the goose is grand for the gander (how did that go?) and did one in 3D. The amount of knowledge necessary to do so was intimidating, and I still have numerous errors to correct...
Result: I no longer view this as something tedious, but necessary and even rewarding. And despite the very real possibility that modeling the 1000 or so bones in my stegosaurus is but a psychological self-reward delusion, I can only encourage other 3D artists to begin with researched skeletons.

Last but not least: blogs such as yours and the scientific community are a fantastic resource for artists such as myself struggling with the vast pool of knowledge required to work diligently in this field. My own attempt at a supersaurus was driven by Andrea Cau's blog post, and the cheeky debates at ArtEvolved were crucial. So... thanks!

I'd certainly appreciate more fully shaded, 3D turnaround pictures of articulated prehistoric critter skeletons. Far too often all I have to go on is a single photo taken from the side view, or a bunch of amateur photos with the usual distortions.

This Dinosaur definitely needs an orthodonist.

Beautiful work, unfortunately it's to small to really see:(

I'll have to disagree with David a bit, 3D for this kind of art still has a long way to go. Unless the 3D artist is really talented there doesn't seem to be any 'life' to the image. I can be done but it's few and far between right now. Plus there are always time issue with published art, how fast can it be done, how much time will is save with compositing animal with background? Just my 2 cents.

Brett

I noticed he has the neck stretched out in the straight, low posture that has become the norm for recent restorations,though some of his other illustrations seem to allow for greater neck mobility. BTW, I thought the muzzles were narrow too, it takes a long time for dinosaur images to change, even when there is clear evidence that the prior reconstructions are wrong!

Could Diplodocus scratch itself with its tailtip?

I believe Naish and Maas are talking about accuracy, while Booth is talking about aesthetics. Although, in that case, I'm not sure what Naish is talking about--there's still plenty of execrable dinosaur art in other media.

Darren, a wondrously timely blog from my point of view.
I live in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland - Andrew Carnegie's home town. On New Year's Day I was contemplating his statue in the public park (he bought and gifted this former private land to the townspeople, along with a Public Baths and a Library).
Diplodocus carnegii of course was named for him but also Apatosaurus lousiae (the erstwhile 'Brontosaurus') was named for his wife Louise.

I would love to propose and initiate a project to make and parade suitably-scaled simulacra of these two sauropods, locally; 2010 is to be Fife Year of Culture. So I am on the lookout for further resources: 3D skeletal data and just such restorations (for feaibility study). I don't expect to be able to come up with a fully realistic design (given that it must be portable and paradeable) but do hope to at least avoid 'execrable'!

I see Davide has gone for a conservative (no inflatable air-sacs!) head with Witmer-compliant nostril placement (in available space that's nearest to snout tip). That's fine, and the 'look' is great IMHO; I do wonder though if those nostrils are a little too small to be practicable (but then, many living creatures surprise me with their smallness-of-nostril compared to body size and activity levels).

On CG art and my comments about it - as some of you know, I do a lot of consultancy and authoring work for children's books. As a consequence I am over-exposed to the digital art work produced by a few select individuals. If you don't believe me that the term 'execreble' is an appropriate one, check for yourself. There are, of course, some VERY GOOD digital artists who are now producing accurate prehistoric animals, and I most certainly did not have them in mind when making the negative comments that I did. However, we have a long way to go before the medium is well-represented in the popular literature.

Very nice! I really like that Diplodocus display a lot, please include larger images!!!

I think CG is also a very - eh - volatile medium as of yet. There aren't really any standards for animating good dinosaurs. And most CG artists don't take their research seriously.

I read Paul 1987 (yikes, that article is as old as me!) and it made a BIG difference in the way I drew dinosaurs. It's still a great resource for artists - if they can get a hold of it. But I agree, we do need a more in-depth, updated guide that fills in more of the gaps in dinosaur restoration. I hope Greg Paul's new book includes titanosaurs, because that's the group where even well-informed artists are generally forced to be the most speculative.

Wonderful work, but why, oh why did the nostrils have to be placed at the end of the snout Witmer-style, reather than in the nares on the top of the head where they actually belong?

Oh well. Beautifully fantastic art nonetheless.

why, oh why did the nostrils have to be placed at the end of the snout Witmer-style, reather than in the nares on the top of the head where they actually belong?

Interesting. Explain, por favor?

Yes is a miniature, but even so impresses us. If these creatures would have lived in the days noasrte probably were on top of the pyramid of evolution.

This Dinosaur definitely needs an orthodon[t]ist.

The teeth are replaced all the time anyway. The angle at which the teeth protrude makes raking leaves off twigs easier.

What it needs are jaw muscles. Judging from its lower temporal fenestra, which bulges inwards, it hardly has any!

why, oh why

Because that's what all the evidence says? Traces of blood vessels, comparison to extant amniotes... your nostrils aren't in your bony nares either.

Has any counterargument ever been published? If not, what are you waiting for? :-)

@David Maas: Thank you, but that version is too blurry for me to read.

why, oh why did the nostrils have to be placed at the end of the snout Witmer-style, reather than in the nares on the top of the head where they actually belong?
Interesting. Explain, por favor?

Yes please. I'm also under the impression that this is more or less current consensus as to where the diplodocus nostrils were. And I'm hoping to finish my supersaurus.

@Brett: Just wait and see - You'll be drawing those fantastic theropods in 3D one day! (Nima too, but sauropods ;-) )

Ugh, this is an old debate on my blog... have to dig it out. Suffice it to say, buried nasal tubes like Witmer applies to sauropods do not have any modern equivalent. Most modern animals have fleshy nostrils very close to the bony ones. Witmer's argument (based on dissections of living animal heads) is that since they have nostrils at the tip of the snout, dinosaurs probably all did too. Which is fine with something like a T. rex, but with sauropods it's more problematic.

Every animal on land today that has fleshy nostrils at the tip of the snout, also has the bony nostrils there (except for some large mammals, whose bony nostrils diffuse into cartilage, but they STILL are heading towards the snout tip). Contrast this with sauropods where the bony nostrils are well behind and above the tip. Now I know inevitably some will draw conclusions from the rugose and often pitted surfaces of some sauropod snouts and use this to claim the nostrils were anchored low, but the fact is that fleshy nostrils do not need rugosity or deep pits to anchor them at all. Another possibility is that the pits simply anchored very tough skin, which makes sense if the sauropods were sticking their snouts deep into rough, sharp conifer foliage. Concurrent with this scenario, is the model of sauropods with high-placed fleshy nostrils, out of the way of the sharp foliage so they will not get injured.

Where Witmer's theory goes awry is that even those animals with fleshy nostrils at the tip of the snout still have them located very close to the bony nostrils. "Nasal tubes" are only present in elephants and whales, neither of which is an acceptable nasal model for sauropods. So I would still place the nostrils on top of the bony nostrils high on the head

Okay, explanation time.

Why I don't accept Witmer's propsals on this issue:

1. There is no osteological evidence on diplodocid skulls for nasal "tubes" extending from the bony nares to the end of the snout. The bone surface of the Diplodocus snout is smooth, with no indication of attachment scars or anything of the sort. If these "tubes" existed, where'd they attach? The bone texture is suprisingly smooth all the way down to where the vascular traces are present, which brings us to

2. While traces of blood vessels are present toward the end of the snout, my examination leads me to beleive that the vascularized bone texture does not correlate with the position of the fleshy nostrils - i. e. this is not actually the nasal vestibular vascular plexus (NVVP), as Witmer argues. In diplodocids, these grooves probably instead indicate a keratinous beak-like structure on the snout, as they closely resemble similar grooves present on the snouts of beak-bearing taxa such as birds and turtles. They also closely resemble the vascular texture seen on the surface of the horn cores in ceratopsians, structures everyone agrees were keratin-covered. Also, the grooves are not confined the area of the snout where Witmer suspects the fleshy nostrils to have been located, which is what you'd expect if this was truly the NVVP, but they instead extend all the way down the front of the snout to above the teeth. They cover the whole rostralmost portion of the snout. I thus reinterpret the vascular bone texture present on the end of the snout as suggesting that diplodocids possesed a toothed "pseudo-beak".

3. No viable extant anologue. As Witmer himself states in his paper, "The front of the fleshy nostril in some taxa extended rostrally beyond the front of the bony nostril (e.g., Uromastyx, Anser, Megaceryle), but, in most cases, it was just caudal (e.g., Alligator, Struthio, Spheniscus, Fulica) or coincident with the front of the bony nostril (e.g., Dromaius, Bubo, Larus)." Nostrils that extended out in front of the bony nares were rare. The majority of taxa Witmer examined had nostrils located at or around the very front of the bony nares. In those taxa whose fleshy nostrils did extend beyond the front of the bony nares, the extension was very slight. There is no extant animal (besides the sperm whale, which will be ignored as whales are obviously not good functional models for sauropods) that lacks a proboscis or trunk and yet has long cranial "tubes" extending from bony nares atop the head to down on the tip of the snout, terminating in the fleshy nostrils. In all extant "reptiles" and birds, the position of the fleshy nostrils is always roughly assosiated with the front of the bony nares. A lack of any sort of viable extant analogue putrs a damper on Witmer's proposal.

4. No functional explanation for the high position of the nares. Prosauropods, the ancestors of sauropods, have bony nares in the "typical" position at the front of the snout, and the fleshy nostrils must have been correlated with this position. During sauropod evolution, the nares drifted up, until in diplodocids they are located right between the eyes on the very top of the head. Why? Why did the bony nares drift cranially during sauropod evolution while the fleshy nostrils remained at the front of the snout in the prosauropod position? Something isn't making much evolutionary sense.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong on any one of these points - any takers? :)

@Michael O Erickson
You are using almost only birds as analogues, but birds generally lack sense of smell and are not foliovores.

Nostrils must be located at the end of the mouth simply because browsing animal must smell what it is eating. Otherwise it will stuff its mouth full of inedible or poisonous vegetation.

I have seen some sloppy-looking digital illustrations of dinosaurs, e.g., editorial stuff for 'NewScientist' (some years ago, and they could have argued that it was primarily 'decorative' art rather than explanatory).
For example, there is the 'cut 'n' paste' approach, basically digital photomontage, where photos of skin textures from extant animals are crudely sampled and stuck onto an outline of the animal.
CG should allow detailed, accurate and poseable models to be created, ultimately saving some of the drudgery and guesswork of restoration.

"You are using almost only birds as analogues, but birds generally lack sense of smell and are not foliovores."

No I'm not. I'm using all extant "reptiles" and birds, including crocodilians and squamates - everything that makes up the EPB. I am not using "almost only birds", where'd you get that impression?

"Nostrils must be located at the end of the mouth simply because browsing animal must smell what it is eating. Otherwise it will stuff its mouth full of inedible or poisonous vegetation."

Not entirely true. The diplodocid lowers its head, sniffs with the cranially placed nostrils, raises its head and eats. Not that hard, really. And if you're regularly stuffing the majority of your snout and head deep into prickly conifer needles, it would actually be advantageous to have nostrils placed cranially to keep them them clear of the needles.

Jerzy #23:

birds generally lack sense of smell

Why do people keep on saying that? It's a myth, there has been a lot of recent research which strongly suggests that olfaction is important for Aves in general, for instance see here.

I agree with Darren and Brett on 3-D artwork, most of it just too ugly, and "lifeless" to make any artistic sense, unless you have a lot of money and/or companies like Weta Workshop or ILM behind you.

Proper 3-D artwork requires much more skills than a single artist can usually muster - building the model, texturing, shading/rendering and compositing are all separate venues of specialization, and on top of that, they need good teamwork and coordination to work well.

Having said that, very crude 3-D CAN be useful to build a quick, perspective-posing template for a more complicated piece that is later executed in more "traditional 2-D techniques, be it on paper, on the computer.

About sauropod nostrils, it is my armchair hunch that these animals possibly had something far more complicated and fancy in their faces - inflatable sacs and flamboyant social display structures come to mind. Of course, this is only an educated guess.

Why do people keep on saying that?

Calm down. There are still tons of people out there who don't know that relativistic and quantum physics have been developed.

The reason why it was ever claimed that birds have a bad sense of smell* is that birds don't think that their shit stinks.

This, in turn, is because only mammals use theirs to mark territories. If you think that territory boundaries stink, you're less likely to get into fights.

* I've never before encountered the claim that they have no sense of smell at all. It is after all well known that birds have olfactory lobes in the brain! I've never read of an exception!

Au contraire mon frere, 3D which is beautiful, exquisite, and life-like is within the grasp of anyone with the talent and a few hundred hours to spare. Observe the gap in talent between the pikers and the talented at http://forums.cgsociety.org/ ... Unfortunately, it seems like mostly pikers get involved in paleo-art. And een if you have amazing skill with one thing (zbrush, painted textures, modeling, whatever), it's no guarantee of skill with another (rigging, animation), so even the best stuff has weaknesses, compounded by a lack of scientific knowledge. But oh, dino art that will make Jurasic Park look like Walking With Dinosaurs is so tantalizingly close to reality....

In Cameron's defense, I have also encountered the old saw that birds don't smell. As I recall, somebody put putrid meat in a cage with vultures, and the vultures weren't interested in it; Q.E.D., they insisted. Didn't try it with fresh meat, of course. Sir David did a wonderful demonstration in Life of Birds drawing in seabirds from miles around with a little chum on the water.

I favor a pair of hollow snoods, myself, but not for any defensible reason.

Nima:

Another possibility is that the pits simply anchored very tough skin, which makes sense if the sauropods were sticking their snouts deep into rough, sharp conifer foliage. Concurrent with this scenario, is the model of sauropods with high-placed fleshy nostrils, out of the way of the sharp foliage so they will not get injured.

Nostril injury doesn't seem to be a major concern to large extant mammalian herbivores. Moose may browse extensively on conifers and don't seem too bothered by the needles. And giraffe, camels, and many other ungulates habitually stick their noses into even more formidably spiky and thorny foliage whilst foraging. Is there any reason to think that sauropod noses were significantly more sensitive to injury than those of modern artiodactyls?

Michael:

my examination leads me to beleive

'Your' examination? Do you mean that you've actually done some original research on this subject? What material have you examined, and how?

David, if I actually had the time to do it I might eventually try it but I won't have ANY idea what I'm doing. I can pump out penciled work WAY faster than doing 3D work. Once they make 3D programs for dummies I might try it.;)

Mike, it's only partially aesthetics, most of the 3d art I've seen is just as bad as most of the 2D, even at a glance you can see how bad the anatomy is. You'd figure with all the time it takes to do them they'd at least TRY to get the anatomy right. I believe the term 'Garbage in, garbage out' works well for that.

Best

I lurk here a lot and enjoy reading the comments, but I'm coming out of the shadows because the topic of CG is something I can actually contribute something worthwhile to.

"I can pump out penciled work WAY faster than doing 3D work. Once they make 3D programs for dummies I might try it.;)"

2D is ALWAYS faster than 3D. No getting around it. If you're looking for some good easy to use and above all free 3D software with a great community try blender. Their website is blender.org I was actually thinking of trying to model a deinonychus myself, but have been too intimidated by the paleontological knowledge needed to do it right.

"'Your' examination? Do you mean that you've actually done some original research on this subject? What material have you examined, and how?"

Please don't get snarky. I've visually examined high-quality study casts of the skulls of Diplodocus carnegii and Apatosaurus louisae. Why is this surprising? Is it a shock that I have the ability to perform a bit of my own research?

"2D is ALWAYS faster than 3D."
For one image, yes. For two images, maybe. The third image will usually mark the break-even point. Or - one image with a herd. Etc. I won't beat this dead horse here, as I'd have to prove it - which I won't be able to for a few months yet - but I'll wager that Nima and Brett and others will be drawing 3D dinosaurs (and entering cooperations with to see their drawings animated) within the next 2 years. The cg market is still in its infancy, so the tools will diversify and ripen.

btw, Ethan - I followed advice in Greg Paul's books to first do a skeletal reconstruction. As intimidating as it may sound, I recommend it highly. There are good reconstructions from knowledgeable artist/scientists out there and the knowledge won in the process is well worth the effort. Mine took 3 days.

David (#28):

Some authors (and I'll have to look up who) speculated that people were biased against avian olfaction because it doesn't seem like they should be able to "sniff" with their nostril morphology! Also, I think some nerd-rage is justifiable when almost every popular source is completely misinformed about a topic - hopefully more studies like pigeons navigating via olfaction will make the news.

I think [...] nerd-rage is justifi[...]e[d] when almost every popular source is completely misinformed about a topic

Absolutely!!! <raising rock hammer high above head and swinging it wildly>

I tried to explain where the misconception probably came from in the first place.

@Cameron, David MarjanoviÄ et al.

OK, birds don't completely lack the sense of smell. Satisfied? Just the average bird has worse smell than average human. And there are exceptions: kiwi, tubenoses, Coragyps vultures, one species of auklet, kakapo etc. All famous as oddities. And a single work which suggests that pigeons use smell on homing. But none of the extremely well studied birds mentioned: Anser, Megaceryle, Struthio, Spheniscus, Fulica, Dromaius, Bubo, Larus is known to use smell in locating food. There are about as few birds which can smell as birds which cannot fly.

But boys, if you think about studying dinosaurs, learn basic facts about birds. Otherwise it is just funny.

I don't know David, how fast can your machine do 22 images?;)
But seriously I have thought about it even for the comic stuff I do, but what I want can't be done without GREAT expense and LOTS of time since all the characters/animals/monsters would each need to be created. It might be good for one animal at a time and then eventually combining them into scenes but that would take years and years.

I have had some of my dino art turned into 3D before, one I did for a guy in Sweden years ago, looked pretty cool. The other done by my brother who teaches 3D stuff. Looked OK, but not what I would call really good. It still looked wrong and strange.

Brett

I generally find 3D paleoart horrible. Even with regard to relatively well rendered stuff like the image captures of the "walking with dinoasurs" series. The dinosaurs tend to have a 'bubble' like quality to them which I think comes from the little things like the way the foot pads don't deform to the ground surface, and the chracteristic blurring of the image so that there is a loss of skin detail. So I would agree with Darren that atleast on a popular level there is still a way to go yet before 3D usurps more traditional methods.

I figure the spiky stuff on the back of their necks was to keep pterosaurs from roosting on there, same as the poky stuff on walls today. 'Cause they hate that, you know, and pterosaurs were even filthier than pigeons.

Please don't get snarky. I've visually examined high-quality study casts of the skulls of Diplodocus carnegii and Apatosaurus louisae. Why is this surprising? Is it a shock that I have the ability to perform a bit of my own research?

Michael, if you intend to do serious research on, say, sauropod narial anatomy (or, specifically, falsify Witmer's hypothesis), looking at casts will not do. You'll have to investigate the original fossils (and many more of them than just two). And you always need to remember that in science, 'if it isn't published, it doesn't exist'. If, for example, you think your data are so robust that you can demonstrate (i.e., not merely suggest) that 'diplodocids possesed a toothed "pseudo-beak"' then go ahead, write your research up and submit it for official publication. Unless and until you do so, you can't legitimately claim it as 'your' research. Sorry if that sounds harsh (or snarky), but all scientists must play by those rules.

Jerzy:

Coragyps vultures

I'm sure that's just a lapsus calami, but just to be clear: it's the Cathartes vultures, not Coragyps, that locate their food by smell.

Assuming that diplodocus didn't get its water needs from vegetation, it had to drink. Assuming it drank ALOT, it would want to breathe while doing so to avoid dangerously long stays in a position where its vitals are basically laid out on a platter. And... assuming it had no cheeks, it would have had to submerge its head to a certain level to maintain suction drinking, right?
I grabbed some of the neck position graphics off of svpow and superimposed rough water levels: http://www.stickman.de/content/temp/diplo_nasal%20pos.jpg
Lots of assumptions there, but seems to me that the nasal openings would have to be above these levels to ensure efficient drinking, which would be at least a tad bit higher than on the Bonadonna's (fantastic) sculpt.

Just the average bird has worse smell than average human.

Is there actually any evidence for this?

All famous as oddities.

Not just simply because they're the only ones whose sense of smell has been investigated at all?

But none of the extremely well studied birds mentioned:

That pigeons use their sense of smell and have a magnetic sense at all was only discovered very recently. Pigeons have been very well studied since ever.

No so well, after all, considering.

I've mused privately that perhaps sauropods had fleshy lips covering their exposed teeth and cheeks covering the empty space between their teeth and the back of the mouth. Seems like a lot of food could get lost on the way back.

"Michael, if you intend to do serious research on, say, sauropod narial anatomy (or, specifically, falsify Witmer's hypothesis), looking at casts will not do. You'll have to investigate the original fossils (and many more of them than just two). And you always need to remember that in science, 'if it isn't published, it doesn't exist'. If, for example, you think your data are so robust that you can demonstrate (i.e., not merely suggest) that 'diplodocids possesed a toothed "pseudo-beak"' then go ahead, write your research up and submit it for official publication. Unless and until you do so, you can't legitimately claim it as 'your' research. Sorry if that sounds harsh (or snarky), but all scientists must play by those rules."

I understand the point, but I'm also a bit confused. I never claimed that I had this awesome, kick-butt evidence proving Witmer wrong beyond all doubt, nor did I claim that I could conclusively demonstrate anything to anyone. All I have said is that I disagree with Witmer's hypotheses on diplodocid narial anatomy (and that this is partly based on looking at a couple of skull casts of two different taxa). Several people wanted me to explain why I disagreed with Witmer, and so I explained why. Surely you realize if I intended to try to seriously and officially rebutt Witmer's hypothesis that I would look at more than two specimen casts, and get ahold of real meterial!
Of course, there's a reason they make casts - so folks (including scientists) who don't have acess to the actual meterial can still examine things. That's not to say that casts are a substitute for the real McCoy, just that scientific examination of casts in the absence the original fossils is what casts are for.
I do respectfully disagree, though, that something is not "research" until it is published. Sort of a slap in the face to people who can't aford to publish in a good journal - the research may not be valid to science as a whole until it is published, that much is true, but saying that a person's hours of investigation into a given matter (for the record, I'm not referring to myself) is not research simply because it has not been published (yet) seems strong medicine indeed. I've heard the term "unpublished research" said before; are you saying that this phrase is invalid, and that publication is what makes research research?

I agree with the CGI thing. If you're going to do it, you need to study the anatomy like you would with any other animal or artistic medium. So many don't bother.

The lizardly bent legs always get me particularly, because I knew that dinosaurs had a straight legged stance before I started school, so to me it's a very basic fact that people should know. I always cringe when i'm in a museum gift shop and the legs on the models are wrong, lol.

Michael:

All I have said is that I disagree with Witmer's hypotheses on diplodocid narial anatomy (and that this is partly based on looking at a couple of skull casts of two different taxa).

That's fair enough. And I hope you noticed that I didn't say that your suggestion was necessarily wrong (I'm really not knowledgeable enough about dinosaur narial anatomy to tell either way), just that it, as I perceived it, was extrapolated beyond what was actually supported by evidence. There is such a thing as being right for the wrong reasons (and vice versa).

That's not to say that casts are a substitute for the real McCoy

Commercially available casts are, in my impression anyway, quite often not detailed enough for the kind of highly detailed research that we're talking about here. This is particularly true of the internal anatomy (e.g., cranial or narial). At the very least, as a matter of principle one should not attempt to use casts to refute research done on the original fossils.

saying that a person's hours of investigation into a given matter (for the record, I'm not referring to myself) is not research simply because it has not been published (yet) seems strong medicine indeed.

Scientific data need to be (at least potentially) accessible to other scientists, so that they may evaluate your data and repeat your experiment if they so wish. Unpublished research fails to meet that particular criterion, and that's what makes it so problematic. Your colleagues will need to know exactly what you've done, and how you've done it (and usually, depending on the research field and particular research question, also where you've done it and when you've done it). What if there's some fatal flaw in your methodology that you have somehow failed to notice for yourself? How are your colleagues to judge that the results of your research are valid?

I've heard the term "unpublished research" said before; are you saying that this phrase is invalid, and that publication is what makes research research?

It's not invalid (though personally I'd prefer the term 'unpublished data' in this case; 'unpublished research' and 'unpublished data' aren't quite the same thing), just problematic, for the reasons above. People do cite, for various reasons, unpublished data in technical publications (in fact, I sometimes do that myself), but the implication is that the research actually has been done and that the data exist and can be provided upon request. And with such unpublished data there is always the risk that the source itself becomes unavailable. If the crucial data that support your research only exist hidden behind passwords on professor X's computer hard drive (or inside his head), and professor X then happens to be hit by a bus on his way to work... Let's just say that it's preferable in every way that data are officially published.

Speaking of publication... There is debate on the matter (for example, it's been discussed several times recently on SV-POW) of what, exactly, counts as 'published'. More to the point, do blog posts and/or comments count? That issue is far from settled, and there's a considerable grey area, but it's probably safe to say that for the time being, what's discussed in the blogosphere doesn't quite qualify as part of the scientific literature*. In other words, no professional scientist is required to take any notice of what you (or I) write in, say, the comments section of Tet Zoo. That is also worth keeping in mind.

* That state of affairs may, of course, change some day in the future.

David Maas:

assuming it had no cheeks, it would have had to submerge its head to a certain level to maintain suction drinking, right?

Is there any particular reason to assume that sauropods were suction drinkers? What if they drank like most extant dinosaurs do (including the largest ones)?

As for the need to drink affecting sauropod nostril position; if the selection pressure caused by that really was so strong, would it not have been an evolutionarily "easier solution" to just evolve nostrils that shut while the animal is drinking?