Detecting Missing Elements from Scans

[Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>]

Inspired by Dave Peter's adventures with image enhancement in
PhotoShop, and his discovery of innumerable previously unknown
pterosaur elements, I went back to my PDF of _Osteology, paleobiology,
and relationships of the sauropod dinosaur Sauroposeidon_ (Wedel,
Cifelli and Sanders, Acta Paeaeontol. Pol. 45, 4, 343-388).

Figure 6 on page 11 shows a right lateral view of the type sequence of
four cervical vertebra, presumed to be C5-C8.  By applying image
enhancement I was able to detect almost the whole of the rest of the
animal, which has somehow been missed although it's been in the slab
all along: the whole cervical/dorsal sequence is present, plus most of
the tail and various fore- and hind-elements.  There are also
twenty-eight babies and of course a skull.  Two, in fact.

Among the most interesting of the new elements is a tall dorsal
"frill", measuring perhaps four meters at the highest point.  Also, it
turns out that _Sauroposeidon_ has six legs, indicating that its
putative phylogenetic position as a brachiosaurid may be due for
revision.

 _/|_    _______________________________________________________________
/o ) \/  Mike Taylor  <mike@indexdata.com>  http://www.miketaylor.org.uk
)_v__/\  "Users don't read it" -- Nielsen's first law of computer
         documentation.

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