Stegosaurus stenops skeletal reconstructions

More skeletals!

This time, here's Stegosaurus stenops, the holotype (USNM 4934, top) and Sophie (NHMUK PV R36730, bottom). These diagrams show the material known from each specimen. Between them we have a mostly complete picture of S. stenops, but the holotype is a little bit mashed and jumbled, and it took the description of Sophie to work out what was what. You may be used to seeing reconstructions of the S. stenops holotype with a shorter neck and longer body than this. That's because before the *slightly* more complete presacral skeleton of Sophie was examined, it wasn't totally clear where the neck ended and torso started in the type skeleton, due to missing ribs. The Sophie skeleton thus confirms that Stegosaurus had a longer neck but shorter torso than has been classically depicted, which brings the animal's overall silhouette more in line with various other stegosaurs.

For an absolute ton of information on the Sophie skeleton that we have here at the NHM, and more about Stegosaurus in general, you should check out Maidment, Brassey & Barrett, 2015: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0138352. While I have had the chance to study Sophie up-close during my time working at the NHM, the information, photographs, and scan data from this project formed a key basis for this diagram. Gilmore's extensive monograph, while dated in some aspects these days, was also a key and very informative resource on Stegosaurus osteology, especially for the S. stenops holotype: https://repository.si.edu/handle/10088/30429