Box 'O Vertebrae

Did you find all of those? That's a bunch! Did you drill holes through the middle or did they preserve that way?

Most are off of the skull specimen I'm working on. A dozen or so are composite finds. The holes are natural. That's where the notochord runs. Discovery by Fred Nuss!

Most are off of the skull specimen I'm working on. A dozen or so are composite finds. The holes are natural. That's where the notochord runs. Discovery by Fred Nuss!

Cool find. The verts on a Xiphactinus are solid. The notochord runs on top of them within the spines attached at the top. Someone must have drilled them. Are you going to try and reconstruct the fish?

I'm not up on my ichthio-physiology but I researched some fish spinal info and from what I could discern the spinal chord runs through the dorsal processes on top of the spinal column while the nodochord ran through the centrums. I've prepped all this material myself, as well as several other specimens over the years, from the field jacket and the holes in the centrum were there and consistent through all of the verts. Do you have a link to any better reference material? Always looking for some constructive criticism.

I assume the Xiph in your avatar pic is the one you found? Where is it displayed?

I'm not up on my ichthio-physiology but I researched some fish spinal info and from what I could discern the spinal chord runs through the dorsal processes on top of the spinal column while the nodochord ran through the centrums. I've prepped all this material myself, as well as several other specimens over the years, from the field jacket and the holes in the centrum were there and consistent through all of the verts. Do you have a link to any better reference material? Always looking for some constructive criticism.

I assume the Xiph in your avatar pic is the one you found? Where is it displayed?

Yep, I found that one. It's in my basement museum. I have that 1 complete one, and 2 additional skulls, plus 6 other fragmentary X-fish. None of the 400 or so verts I've found have a hole in the middle. If you look at this skeleton from the Rocky Mountain Dino Resource Center, you can see the spines that stick up from the verts as well as the ones that stick out from the sides near the top of the verts. Those 3 bones come together with a small round hole between them, running on top of the vertebra. That's where the spinal cord runs. The centrum themselves are all solid disks of bone.

http://oceansofkansas.com/Xiphactinus/xfish-t2.jpg

Make sense?

Is your X-fish from Kansas? The skull is beautiful! Not much distortion at all.