TALES FROM LONDON
Chapter V: The Bones
An Allosaur, playing a game of freeze-tag with a nearby Iguanodon skeleton at the
London Natural History Museum. Next to Shakespeare at the Globe (which I'll share tomorrow), this was my favorite stop of the trip.
Elevated catwalks gave us an interesting perspective, looking down on the skeletons.
The one thing that bugged me was some of the messed up dino anatomy. The shoulder bones (corocoids, specifically, for you real dino nerds out there) were spaced too far apart in everything from the theropods to ceratopsians.
That's almost forgiveable, though. We're always revising our opinions about dino anatomy. The one really blatant error was displayed at kid's-eye-view on a video screen. An animated walk-cycle portrayed a Diplodocus walking like two blokes in a horse costume. One glance at any modern quadruped would have shown them that the front two appendages are still arms, even if they're walked on, and bend backward, like an elbow, not forward like a knee.
C'mon, England, this sort of sloppy thinking is why we had to save you guys in the war.
