Baffled by diplodocoids? Need a comprehensive introduction? You’re in luck!

It crept out quietly under cover of darkness, but I’m pleased to say that today saw the publication of a new paper:

• Van der Linden, Tom T. P., Michael P. Taylor, Amy Campbell, Brian D. Curtice, René Dederichs, Lucas N. Lerzo, John A. Whitlock, D. Cary Woodruff and Emanuel Tschopp. 2025. Introduction to Diplodocoidea. Palaeontologica Electronica 28.2.a27 (49 pages). doi: 10.26879/1518

As you can see, there are nine authors, and this is one of those papers where each one of them earned his or her place by contributing substantially. It’s a paper with many sections: the introduction, an overview of the history of diplodocoid research, a sketch of diplodocoid phylogeny, sections on each major group (Rebbachisauridae, Dicraeosauridae, Apatosaurinae, Diplodocinae, and “other”), a morphological survey, a review of ecology and ontogeny, a biogeographical survey, thoughts on life appearance, and a terrifyingly exhaustive bibliography.

Van der Linden et al. 2025: Figure 5. Transformation of the cranial bones in diplodocids with noted trends from Whitlock et al. (2010) and Woodruff et al. (2018). Skulls are modified after Woodruff et al. (2018). ” data-medium-file=”https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/vanderlindenetal2015-diplodocoids-figure5.jpeg?w=300″ data-large-file=”https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/vanderlindenetal2015-diplodocoids-figure5.jpeg?w=480″ class=”size-full wp-image-23754″ src=”https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/vanderlindenetal2015-diplodocoids-figure5.jpeg” alt=”" width=”480″ height=”251″ />

Van der Linden et al. 2025: Figure 5. Transformation of the cranial bones in diplodocids with noted trends from Whitlock et al. (2010) and Woodruff et al. (2018). Skulls are modified after Woodruff et al. (2018).

(Figure 5, shown above, is interesting to me. The diplodocid skull shapes shown in the middle and on the right are both hugely familiar to me — wired straight into my hindbrain — but it had simply not occurred to me that they might be growth stages.)

I’m pleased that this paper is at Palaeontologia Electronica — the original open-access palaeontology journal. Despite my annoyance at their low-resolution illustrations (but see the unofficial supplementary information for the full-resolution versions), it’s an important journal not just in our scholarly field but in the history of open access. I’m glad to finally have this notch on my bedpost, after at least one failed attempt.

My main contribution was the historical background section — which will come as no surprise to anyone who’s familiar with my 2010 paper, or the recent works on the Concrete Diplodocus of Vernal (Taylor et al. 2023) and the Carnegie Diplodocus (Taylor et al. 2025). I also wrote the overview of apatosaurines, and the bit in the morphology section about cervical vertebrae, and contributed Figures 2 and 3.

This paper is the first chapter in an in-progress special volume about diplodocoids, in which each chapter appears in Palaeontologia Electronica as it’s ready, rather than waiting for all of them to be ready before any are published. I say “first” in the sense that it would appear first in a printed volume because it’s the introduction. But at least one other paper in the collection has already been published: A new diplodocine sauropod from the Morrison Formation, Wyoming, USA (Van der Linden et al. 2024), and a couple more are in review already. (Matt and I had hoped at one point to get our Giant Barosaurus paper into this volume, but we weren’t able to hit the deadline.)

Anyway, this paper is a pretty comprehensive introduction to a very important clade of the most awesome dinosaurs, and I hope much of it is fairly readable to laymen. Enjoy!

References

• Taylor, Michael P. 2010. Sauropod dinosaur research: a historical review. pp. 361-386 in: Richard T. J. Moody, Eric Buffetaut, Darren Naish and David M. Martill (eds.), Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Saurians: a Historical Perspective. Geological Society of London, Special Publication 343. doi: 10.1144/SP343.22
• Taylor, Michael P., Steven D. Sroka and Kenneth Carpenter. 2023. The Concrete Diplodocus of Vernal — a Cultural Icon of Utah. Geology of the Intermountain West 10:65-91. doi: 10.31711/giw.v10.pp65-91
• Taylor, Michael P., Amy C. Henrici, Linsly J. Church, Ilja Nieuwland and Matthew C. Lamanna. 2025. The history and composition of the Carnegie Diplodocus. Annals of the Carnegie Museum 91(1):55–91. doi:10.2992/007.091.0104
• Van der Linden, Tom T. P., Emanuel Tschopp, Roland B. Sookias, Jonathan J. W. Wallaard, Femke M. Holwerda and Anne S. Schulp. 2024. A new diplodocine sauropod from the Morrison Formation, Wyoming, USA. Palaeontologia Electronica 27.3.a50 (79 pages). doi:10.26879/1380
• Van der Linden, Tom T. P., Michael P. Taylor, Amy Campbell, Brian D. Curtice, René Dederichs, Lucas N. Lerzo, John A. Whitlock, D. Cary Woodruff and Emanuel Tschopp. 2025. Introduction to Diplodocoidea. Palaeontologica Electronica 28.2.a27 (49 pages). doi: 10.26879/1518