Readers, it’s NABT week! The National Association of Biology Teachers is descending on Providence, Rhode Island, and a bunch of NCSE’s finest and I are busy knocking people out of their socks with our awesomeness (promoting NCSEteach and the Science Booster Clubs, while we’re at it). So I’m going to give you the Fossil Friday equivalent of mac & cheese from a box for dinner because I just don’t have time to cook and I want something easy and delicious.
So here is a small section of beautiful backbone. No scale, but I’ll tell you they’re big. How big? So big that the skeleton had to be hung from the ceiling. And, okay, these bones aren’t actually fossils (hence the * in this post’s title), but neither is the cheese in mac & cheese actually cheese, so let’s just go with it.
Your mission: Identify to whom these lovely bones belong, and for a bonus point answer this: Was this animal fully mature when it died? How can you tell?
Until Monday!
PS: If you’re a teacher, and you’re at NABT, please come and say hello! We’ll be at the booth all day. If you can’t come by or you’re not at NABT, I’ll settle for a tweet “hello.” You can find me on Twitter @keeps3.
