New British pliosaur skull revealed

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

20 hours ago, Al Dente said:

I see several teeth in this photo that Digit posted. I’m guessing the others were also broken and laying loose on the skull and were probably removed during prep of the skull.

 

20 hours ago, FranzBernhard said:

The backward(?) teeth are all broken off, but still there. The frontal ones are broken off and - are somewhere else.

 

This video explains what happened to the teeth: apparently they found one of the teeth lying separate from the skull, repaired it, scanned it, and used the size of the roots to scale the tooth casts and set them in place.

 

 

[Ezio Bonsignore]

So here we have it, all the front teeth but one are fakes. I thus repeat my question, which was not rhetorical but rather based on a sincere effort to understand: is this acceptable?

Clearly, the procedure has no scientific value or meaning whatsoever. It might certainly be useful for display purposes in helping the general public towards getting an idea of the living animal, but once again, IS THIS ACCEPTABLE? What is the difference between this supposed scientific restoration, and the unscrupulous Moroccan sellers who would glue real Mosasaurus teeth onto non-descript pieces of bone, and offer the results as "jaws?" Aren't the latter perhaps more honest? I really wonder.

 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

10 hours ago, Ezio Bonsignore said:

So here we have it, all the front teeth but one are fakes. I thus repeat my question, which was not rhetorical but rather based on a sincere effort to understand: is this acceptable?

Clearly, the procedure has no scientific value or meaning whatsoever. It might certainly be useful for display purposes in helping the general public towards getting an idea of the living animal, but once again, IS THIS ACCEPTABLE? What is the difference between this supposed scientific restoration, and the unscrupulous Moroccan sellers who would glue real Mosasaurus teeth onto non-descript pieces of bone, and offer the results as "jaws?" Aren't the latter perhaps more honest? I really wonder.

 

 

I think you raise a valid question, even if one that's very hard to answer within a museological context. For, it is certainly true that museums like presenting picture-perfect specimens to their public. Most dinosaur skulls you'll see mounted on skeletons, for example, are casts, as the real fossils would be way to heavy to mount up that high. Other museums, like the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, the Netherlands, have bones cast - either by mirroring scans of bones from their own specimen or by using scans of others - to complement skeletal mounts. For, in reality, hardly any single dinosaur find is complete. And if you see a complete mount in a museum, it necessarily means casts and completions have been made. For otherwise you end up with specimens looking like either of the two hadrosaurs or the Allopleuron hoffmanni at the Koninklijk Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen in Brussels, or the Saltriovenator 'Saltriosaurus' zanellai holotype in the Museo Civico dei Fossili di Besano below that...

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I understand it's still the believe in many museums that full skeletal mounts are more attractive to the monster-loving public than partial ones - and there's undoubtedly a kernel of truth in this appeal dinosaurs have - one may certainly question the scientific merits of such a display, which is often diminished by such excessive reconstruction. At the same time, accessibility of a specimen is reduced in any case by putting it on display, since it takes a lot of effort to remove the fossil elements from a mount for study - let alone the fact that one of the museum's star attractions will, for a while, not be available to visitors. One may therefore certainly say that putting fragmentary specimens up on display - although typically more difficult to achieve due to the complexities involved in such mounts - are more scientifically valuable than those where specimens have been reconstructed to completion. It remains, however, up to individual museums to decide what aspect of a specimen they wish to emphasise: the scientific value of the public appeal.

 

Where I think the differences with Moroccan fossil dealers lie are:

1. The scientific accuracy of repairs, reconstructions and additions - Museums hire specialised knowledge and work together with palaeontologists to come to the most scientifically accurate reconstruction of a specimen, often involving study of the individual fossil itself prior to reconstruction, so that the specimen's particularities may be taken into account.
2. The quality of said repairs, reconstructions and additions - Rather than flimsily adding elements of other fossils together so as to create a Frankenmonster, the preparators employed by museums and other academic institutions use high-quality materials to achieve lasting, but reversible repairs, recording their work each step along the way. The latter is important, as this allows researchers to later determine whether a feature they've observed in the specimen is actually part of the fossil or may have been caused by preparation or reconstruction.
3. The intention behind such repairs, reconstructions and additions - Museums will often perform such repairs and reconstructions to show their visitors how specimens would've looked in a more complete state, while also, as said, applying to the public's monster-appeal of dinosaurs. The better exhibits while therefore highlight which elements of a mount are authentic fossils and which are formed by additions and repairs. For, all through the while, their main goal remains to inform the general public about past life. Moroccan fossil dealers apply their repairs and additions with a less benevolent purpose in mind: namely fetching a higher sum selling the fossil. And as fossil trade, moreover, is rather like an art market, this further complicates matters as that turns their work into forgery - the more there's often little openness about what parts are authentic fossil and which have been added.

For me, therefore, there's a clear distinction between what Moroccan's do, US and European high-end fossil dealers do (who also often complete specimens for sale, yet are more careful when it comes to points 1 & 2 above, i.e., applying more scientific accuracy and creating higher quality outcomes), and how museums go about things. Which isn't to say I'm not disappointed by the teeth of the newly discovered pliosaur skull being casts - something I believe emphasises display value over scientific merit. Where the matter becomes more complicated, in my mind, however, is when high-end preparators use their scientific knowledge, quality and skill to recreate fossils beyond what's actually present, like when they reconstruct a two-dimensionally preserved ichthyosaur in three dimensions, such as the below skull of an Eurhinosaurus longirostris at the temporary Missing Link Marine Reptile exhibit in Nancy back in June 2021. While I can certainly admire the skill and artistry behind such reconstructions, they're just not the same as actually finding a three-dimensionally preserved skull.

 

 

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

On 12/31/2023 at 3:52 PM, pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon said:

This video explains what happened to the teeth

 

So, just heard on the show that the missing teeth - namely those from the tip of the rostrum that was found separate on the beach - are suspected to have been destroyed in the shingle on the beach...

[pachy-pleuro-whatnot-odon]

This very interesting interview with Nigel Larkin - of Rutland Sea Dragon/Ichthyosaur fame - was just put out by The Etches Collection with reference to the new pliosaur skull. Some new information there that hasn't been discussed on the BBC documentary too, such as that, while the teeth on the side most often pictured are either reconstructed or a jumble, those on the other side (except for the rostrum) are actually still all properly in place; how preparation was done; how most pliosaur vertebrae that have been found so far actually appear to represent juvenile individuals because their neural arches aren't fused (though some vertebrae have been found where the arches are fused); and lots of other interesting tidbits of information.

 

 

[Tidgy's Dad]

It is now on public display.

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67782416

[Creek - Don]

nborough Vidand the Jurassic Sea Monster 

 

 

[jpc]

Speaking as a museum guy, I think it is perfectly legit to put in reconstructed teeth, as long as you tell the public exactly what  has been done.  We do on our exhibits, but I know historically, this has not been the case.