Mesozoic Miscellany 54

I'm trying a slightly different format this time around, arranging links by theme rather than listing them like I have been. Not quite a return to the original format of these roundups, but a little more fun for me to put together. We'll see if I like it enough to stick with it. Anyway. On to the link-o-rama.

Tarbosaurus bataar has been all over the news lately, what with the flap over the auctioning of a disputed specimen last weekend by Heritage Auctions, as well as a single leg that was to be scheduled by Christie's, but has been saved for now. The SVP has now issued a statement via its blog. I wrote two posts (one and two) on the auction, Brian Switek has covered it both at Dinosaur Tracking and Laelaps, the former of which has a rather spirited comment thread going. Dinosaur National Monument's paleontologist, Dan Chure, has been spreading the word via the Dinosaur Mailing List and his Land of the Dead blog. Victoria Arbour wrote a great piece at Pseudoplocephalus which goes into how museums work and why paleontologists aren't trying to greedily hoard fossils. It's also been covered over at the new blog Musings of a Clumsy Paleontologist in a pair of posts (one and two). At the team blog Skepticblog, Donald Prothero summed up the issue quite nicely. Also check out Illiterate Scholar's post at Dinosaur Couch and Andrea's at Theropoda.

Pterosaur goodies: Photos of a rare Dimorphodon tail at the Pterosaur Database, and Pterosaur net delivered a post by Michael Habib on the trend of large body sizes in pterosaurs as well as details on a new paper from Elaine Hyder, Mark Witton, and Dave Martill analyzing the evolution of the pelvis across the pterosaurs, and ad Archosaur Musings Dave Hone wrote a bit about what we know about pterosaur ontogeny.

Fun stuff: A diorama contest from Dinosaur Toy Blog and Dan's Dinosaurs, Doodle of Boredom mashed Edward Scissorhands, dinosaurs, and topiary together, Jenn Hall adapted dinosaurs to the "Three Wolf Moon" meme, an idea Trish Arnold also explored with our new buddy Yutyrannus recently. And Bissette's Tyrant is back!