This week’s post is from Lauren Sumner-Rooney, a post-doctoral researcher at the Museum für Naturkunde. If you would like to write for Anatomy to You, get in touch via Facebook or Twitter. The featured image shows a specimen of a new species of Zetela (a snail), removed from its shell. Image: Natural History Museum, Specimen: Museum National…
Tag: science
In focus: Investigating the Biomechanics of the Tadpole from Hell
by Eva Herbst, Structure & Motion Lab, The Royal Veterinary College, UK. If you would like to contribute a guest post, please get in touch, such as on Twitter or Facebook. Fig. 1 Reconstruction of Crassigyrinus scoticus (Panchen & Smithson 1990) My name is Eva Herbst and I started my PhD with John Hutchinson and co-supervisor…
In focus: How much do turtles wiggle their hips?
by Christopher Mayerl, Evolutionary Morphology and Biomechanics Laboratory at Clemson University (S. Carolina, USA). If you would like to contribute a guest post, please get in touch, such as on Twitter or Facebook. When you see a turtle, you automatically know it’s a turtle and not something else, probably because of its distinctive shell. However, there’s…
In focus: The big picture of little bones in tuatara
By Sophie Regnault with John Hutchinson and Marc Jones Sesamoid bones are specialised, typically small, bones found in tendons near to joints, with several unusual characteristics. We’ve covered them here before. These sesamoids tend to alter the mechanics of joints, and their development also seems highly influenced by movement. They can vary between individuals or…
#FossilFriday New discoveries at your feet: 40 million year-old sea cow found in Spanish pavement!
It’s not uncommon to glance down at the pavement or the floor of a shopping centre and spot traces of ancient life – ammonites and belemnites can be seen in deposits all over the world, for example. But in the Spanish town of Girona, the paving slabs of one street have offered up a very…
In focus: Launching our new CrocBase project!
We are delighted to announce the launch of the first of several new open access databases from John Hutchinson’s team at the RVC, containing complete CT and MRI scans of almost all our modern crocodile specimens! Our CrocBase is hosted via the Open Science Framework, and contains 53 scan datasets of five crocodilian (AKA crocodylian to scientists) species…
Cartilage and encroaching bone in the developing mouse skeleton
This shot of the dorsal neck of a developing mouse embryo visually shows the process of skeletal growth found in all bony vertebrates. The widespread blue stain (Alcian blue) reveals the extensive cartilaginous blueprint for the growing skeleton, which extends by the division of chondrocytes (cartilage-producing cells) guided by signalling molecules across the embryo. The…
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