Genuinely, my all-time favourite image: Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis | Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

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Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

SV-POW! … All sauropod vertebrae, except when we're talking about Open Access. ISSN 3033-3695

Genuinely, my all-time favourite image: Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis

June 4, 2026

Get ready to scroll.

In 2017, Wollaton Hall in Nottinghamshire hosted an exhibition, Dinosaurs Of China: Ground Shakers To Feathered Flyers. Wollaton Hall Curator Adam Smith arranged for the SVPCA attendees to visit the exhibition after the conference as a "field trip". Needless to say, the star of the show for me was the rearing cast skeleton of Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis. But it’s so tall, it’s very hard to photograph well.

While we were there, Matt took a a lot of photos of this skeleton, and among them were several sequences showing the Mamenchisaurus from head to tail. Moving with my usual haste, it took me only nine short years to do something with these.

And by "do something", what I mean is "ask someone else to do something". Specifically, I sent the best sequence to Jarrod Davis, a very old friend of Matt’s and an Emmy-award winning visual effects specialist. And I asked him — as we have done before — to use his skills to stitch the sequence together. The result is the photo above.

It’s high resolution (3171 x 7931 pixels), so here’s how I recommend viewing. Click through to the full-sized image. Put your browser into full-screen mode. Adjust the scaling so the image fits the width of the screen. Then just enjoy scrolling through that long, long neck.

My deep gratitude to Jarrod for doing the work on this, and to Matt for taking the original photos. The image is destined for a paper that I’m working on, but it was just too good not to share with y’all.

I want to get this printed out extra-large and attach it to the wall of my office, ceiling-to-floor.

doi:10.59350/b6svd-p5w82

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Posted by Mike Taylor

Filed in mamenchisaur, mounts

18 Comments »

18 Responses to "Genuinely, my all-time favourite image: Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis"

SauropodsRCool Says:

June 4, 2026 at 6:31 pm

How large is this specimen? Could it actually rear up the way the mount i showing?

Mike Taylor Says:

June 4, 2026 at 6:36 pm

Mamenchisaurus is roughly Diplodocus-size. Rearing in sauropods remains contentious. You know what the world needs? A paper that has a section reviewing the history of sauropod rearing. Someone should get on that.

SauropodsRCool Says:

June 4, 2026 at 7:06 pm

so would 15-20 tonnes be a good size range? And what are you’re thoughts on sauropod rearing?

Mike Taylor Says:

June 4, 2026 at 9:04 pm

In 2005, Matt estimated the mass of Diplodocus at a rather disappointing 12.5 tonnes. Other estimates are available, and that one is towards the lower end. But I think the mass of Mamenchiosaurus would have been pretty similar: having a longer neck and shorter tail is close to irrelevant, as sauropod mass is strongly dominated by the torso.

On rearing: that is a complicated subject for another day. In the mean time, see Heinrich Mallison’s paper analysing the mechanics of rearing: his blog post at https://dinosaurpalaeo.wordpress.com/2014/08/25/addendum-to-sv-pows-so-close/ gives a good sense.

SauropodsRCool Says:

June 4, 2026 at 9:43 pm

alright thank you for you’re response!! its much appreciated!! Have a nice day.

biltrex Says:

June 5, 2026 at 12:52 am

As always, you are most welcome! I don’t get to contribute much to Science, but I appreciate the opportunity to do so when I can. :)

SauropodsRCool Says:

June 5, 2026 at 3:23 pm

wait are you Mike Taylor, Biltrex?

Mike Taylor Says:

June 5, 2026 at 3:31 pm

No, biltrex is Jarrod Davis, who did the stitch.

SauropodsRCool Says:

June 5, 2026 at 3:44 pm

Well regardless Thank you to both of you!

LeeB Says:

June 6, 2026 at 2:06 am

I’m from Auckland in N.Z. and the very first sauropod I ever saw was Mamenchisaurus hochuanensis when they sent a Chinese dinosaur exhibition out here.

I remember being impressed with it’s size, there wasn’t the room for it to rear up but it was near the ceiling in the museum room anyway.

Of course more recently a Patagonian dinosaur exhibition visited and the Patagotitan skeleton wouldn’t fit in the museum and so they put the exhibition in a large room at the local showgrounds.

They also had a Giganotosaurus skull which was about as long as I am tall.

Quite impressive beasts.

piratrabevonrhyolith Says:

June 7, 2026 at 12:21 am

Great! :)

Mike Taylor Says:

June 8, 2026 at 5:13 pm

That antipodean Mamenchisaurus you saw, LeeB. I reckon someone ought to write a paper about that :-)

LeeB Says:

June 10, 2026 at 12:48 am

I don’t know about that but they produced a small book for the...