Stegosaurus Muscular Anatomy

Here's a chart illustrating the superficial muscle anatomy of Stegosaurus stenops from a number of different views. This reconstruction was previsualised muscle-by-muscle in 3D, working from the scans of the Sophie specimen (NHMUK PV R36730, see here: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0138352).

Some of notes of potential interest:

1. Stegosaurus is a really wide animal! The pelvis of stegosaurids in general are essetially square (or even widely rectangular) in dorsal view due to the laterally folded ilia. This leads to an almost cube-like shape to the torso.

2. Prominent muscle scars on the humerus and pectoral girdle of Stegosaurus duggest that it had some pretty hench forelimbs.

3. Pitting in the cortical bone of the lower regions of Stegosaurus plates implies the presence of Sharpey's Fibres (or equivalent connective tissues). This suggests that the plates were anchored deep within the dermis, and may have even attached tendinously to deeper tissues, possibly the epaxial muscles or fascia. However the form of these possible tissues is still a bit of a question mark, so I haven't attempted to illustrate them here.

Hopefully this will be useful as palaeoart reference!

Useful dinosaur muscle resources: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zomk6qwjqcn48lt/Muscle%20References.pdf?dl=0