Miragaia

I recently came across a great paper on this recently dicovered Stegosaur, Miragaia. The paper by Octávio Mateus, Susannah C.R Maidment and Nicolai A Christiansen outlines in good detail what exactly we can ascertain about this fascinating creature from the newly discovered remains...

Here is a short excerpt from the paper:

"Stegosaurian dinosaurs have a quadrupedal stance, short forelimbs, short necks, and are generally considered to be low browsers. A new stegosaur, Miragaia longicollum...from the Late Jurassic of Portugal, has a neck comprising at least 17 cervical vertebrae. This is eight additional cervical vertebrae when compared with the ancestral condition seen in basal ornithischians such as Scutellosaurus. Miragaia has a higher cervical count than most of the iconically long-necked sauropod dinosaurs...."

I think it's an absolutely beautiful species and has rocketed right up there as one of my favorites. The figure above is one I just bought on Ebay. Produced by Wild Safari LTD in Conjunction with the Carnegie Museum is a wonderful little sculpt. I'm planning to do a large watercolour of Miragaia shortly...I already have a couple of preparatory sketches drawn...just waiting for couple of free studio days!