And I post my blog and stare
Into x-rays of an ostrich
I’ve always known that radiographs never lie
People always say “that’s cool”
To see x-rays of an ostrich
So keen to know what
Lies behind the skin
(evolved from “Eyes of A Stranger” by Queensrÿche, from the epic masterpiece of Operation: Mindcrime (1988). One of my favourite albums of all time, and a fantastic concept album too. The band was operating at their peak. Tight! Drug addict Nikki gets brainwashed by the evil Dr. X and made to assassinate a nun, Sister Mary, who was a prostitute, and then there’s like a revolution or something, and things get all screwed up and no one ends up happy – or alive. All the while, Geoff Tate is singing his guts out. Anyway, I got to see them play the whole album live in 1990 in Madison, WI, for the filming of Operation: Livecrime, which was like a Mecca moment for me back then. Look for me (pre-bald years) in about the 6th row. )
What does that album have to do with the number 2 (two days left in Freezermas)? Hmm… Track 2 is the instrumental Anarchy-X, and today’s post is about X-rays as well as that funky ostrich (2 legs good! 2 toes good, too!) again, so I’m satisfied, and by this point you’re probably just oggling the mind-blowing images below anyway, so fuck it!
Stomach-Churning Rating: 2/10; just X-rays.
Tech/MRes Kyle Chadwick, Renate Weller and the equine imaging team at the RVC took these x-rays of our birdie for us and for an artist who is doing a big x-ray animal art show (more news on this soon!)– thanks to all of them for some truly awesome images! I could stare at the intricate details in these images for hours– go ahead, do it. Click to emostrichinate them (this post needs to be viewed on nice big screen), and oggle away…
Head and neck.
Another view of the same. The highly flexible esophagus and trachea can be seen going diagonally across the neck; twisting from ventral to dorsal. It’s floppy, so it can do that.
Neck near the head; tapering.
Middle of neck. Check out the rings of the trachea!
Base of neck and shoulder.
Shoulder and chest. Hard to image; thick and dense (still was frozen), hence the whiteout toward the left side of the image.
Check out that wing!!
Ankle- note the big calloused pad that ostriches rest on (right side of image).
That two-toed foot… but did you know that normally the missing 2nd toe is still there as a fibrous remnant on the 3rd toe?
Tomorrow: the final day of Freezermas. What will it be?
What's In John's Freezer? 
It’s hard to overstate how awesome these are. Just three things I’d like to draw attention to. First, how very obvious the camellate structure of the skull and cervical verebrae are. They really do look like they’re made of bubble-wrap. Secondly, that the cervical ribs seem to be completely apneumatic. And thirdly, how flexible the bones of the neck seem to be — not just the soft tissue — as evidenced by the first photo where cervical ribs appear at the top of the neck, suggesting that the neck has twisted through 90 degrees (we’re seeing it in dorsal or ventral view, it’s hard to sayt which). Crazy.
Yes the neck is super flexible all over; crazy stuff!
Hi Mike, yes the cervical ribs are grown of solid bone material. We made some slice pictures in 2003 (omg I’m old…). There you can see fresh cervical ribs. Try this very old website and press visual archive (I hope its ok, John):
http://www.uni-flensburg.de/biologie/dinosaurier/Frameset%20NPR.htm
Thanks Gordon! 🙂
These are beautiful images – thanks for sharing them! Lots of great features – I can’t get over the ventral to dorsal oesophagus or that wing!
Thanks Crispin! Our imaging team did a superb job. My jaw dropped when I saw the first images. Lots of squee-ing going on.
Truly gorgeous. I’m curious to hear more about the art show! Love the neck vertebrae and that beautiful foot.
We’ve played around with some bone art before, but illustrations rather than x-rays. Haven’t put them up yet, but it’s in the plans!
super cool indeed!
I wonder about the degree of neck flexibility inferred by Mike based on the orientation of the cervicals (if I didn’t misinterpret him), as they all look more or less similarly oriented (not like we can appreciate a lot of twisting along the longitudinal axis, I mean). Could the guy just have been cervically dislocated, pre- or post-mortem? Not to imply, with this, that there wouldn’t be flexibility, since you reply clearly implies that there is plenty of; just wondering about the specific example.
Anyway, again, wonderful, thanks for sharing 🙂 The foot is somehow artistic*…got a new desktop background 😉
*ehm, realized now that this is _meant_ to be artistic….well, managed it!
Thanks Fillippo- as far as I could tell everything was fine with the cervicals- no dislocation. It did have a postmortem huge fracture of the distal tibiotarsus, which surprised us; got whalloped somehow during transport.
Awesome! Crystal clear x-rays and for my interest good images of the cygapophyses. Excellent work! Thanks for sharing so “hot stuff”!
Gordon
[…] X factor. X-rays of ostriches. John Hutchinson takes a look […]
[…] (NSFW): mystery CT slice, ostrich dissection, a bag of cats, trim your hooves, pig feet are weird, ostrich x-rays, mystery […]