Facial hair of the Mesozoic: Bob Nicholls edition, part 2 (only ten years late)

Back in 2013, we showed you Bob Nicholls’ beautiful sketch “The Giant & Company”, featuring a giant Apatosaurus with a shaggy beard running along its neck. In the years since, I’d forgotten that he drew another sketch at the same time showing … well, he’s just posted both sketches on Mastodon, so let me show you:

I don’t know what taxon Bob intended this to be, but based on the relativelty short hindlimbs I’m seeing it as a diplodocine, and the length of the neck makes me think Barosaurus.

As with the beard in part 2, the sideburns here are purely speculative — we have no particular reason to think that Barosaurus had these, but it really wouldn’t surprise me at if at least some sauropod did. Until we start finding sauropod Lagerstätten, we won’t know.

But this is beautiful work. I often prefer sketches like these over finished pieces — they can have so much life in them.