Fossae/foramina in the articular surfaces of turkey vertebrae

Before we move on, it’s worth clicking through to the full-size version of this image and wondering at both the quality of modern phone cameras (a Pixel 3a in this case) and the variety of textures on these little bones. There is smooth, finished bone on the sides of the neural spines; very fine pits and bumps on the zygapophyseal facets where the thin layer of hyaline cartilage attached; rougher texture in the parapophyseal facets where thicker cartilage attached; and very rough texture on the ends of the transverse processes, where there was relatively thick cartilage.

And there is, unsurprisingly in a bird, pneumaticity everywhere. In the more anterior vertebra alone (to the right) the photo shows pneumatic openings (from bottom to top) low on the centrum (below the parapophysis), high on the centrum (below the lateral process),  in the hollow between the lateral process, the posyzyg and the centrum, on the lateral surface of the prezygapophyseal ramus, and on the rear surface of the lateral process. There are others that are obscured in this photo, including on top of the lateral process where it meets the neural spine. Here they are, pointed out for you (with the hidden one shown translucently):

OK, that was the B-movie. Now to the main feature. The next photo shows the same two vertebrae, folded away from each other so that we see the anterior face of the posterior vertebra (on the left) and the posterior face of the anterior vertebra (on the right).

Again, do click through to see the exquisite detail, especially the complex of pneumatic features on the anterior face of the neural spine of the last dorsal (on the left) and on the posterior face of the left lateral process of the penultimate dorsal (on the right).

And … in the articular facets of the centra?

Seriously, what the heck is going on here? It doesn’t make sense  that there would be pneumatic openings in articular surfaces, because by definition something else (in this case the adjacent vertebra) is abutted hard up against then, so there is no way for a diverticulum to get in. For the same reason, you don’t get vascular foramina in articular surfaces because there is no way to get an artery in there. And there is no hint in these vertebrae of channels along either articular surface that diverticula or arteries could  possibly have laid in.

And yet, there those big openings are. What are they?

I discussed this with Matt, in case it’s Well Known Phenomenon that I’d somehow not heard about but it seems it is not. What we know for sure is that these openings are present, and that they are not mechanical damage inflicted during preparation. So what are they?

What else even is there for them to be? What penetrates bone apart from diverticula and blood vessels? Nerves follow the blood vessels, so it can’t be nerves in the absence of blood vessels.

By the way, there are similar but smaller openings in the posterior face of the last dorsal (the one on the right in the photo), but none anywhere else along the postcervical column: not on the anterior surface of the penultimate dorsal, not on the front or back of the sacrum, and not in any of the other dorsals.

One possibility we considered is that the vertebrae were locked together in life and that a pneumatic space inside the centrum of the last dorsal worked right through into the penultimate one. But that doesn’t work: the openings are not aligned. Also, those in the penultimate dorsal are definitely blind (i.e. they do not connect to deeper internal air-spaces) and those in the last dorsal probably are, too.

We do not know what is going on here.

Help us! Is this kind of thing common in turkeys? Have people seen it in other taxa? Do we know what it is?