Sprawling Diplodocus, 1910 

Detail of swimming Diplodocus. This work was on display in the original exhibition as item 25. Image source: Hay, Oliver P. "On the manner of locomotion of the dinosaurs, especially Diplodocus, with remarks on the origin of the birds," in: Proceedings of the Washington Academy of Sciences, vol. 12 (1910), pl. 1. 

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Not everyone agreed with Osborn, Cope, and Knight that dinosaurs were nimble browsers and agile hunters. Oliver Hay, in particular, thought that making dinosaurs stand and act like mammals was an abuse of anatomical fact. Hay argued that ornithopods like Trachodon must have had a very wide stance, so that the legs could clear the pendulous abdomen, and consequently they must have waddled rather than strode. And he took particular issue with reconstructions of Diplodocus--not just Knight's rearing version, but also Hatcher's upright, elephantine restoration. After studying the structure of the upper leg and the pelvis, Hay concluded that the legs of Diplodocus must have splayed out like those of a crocodile. For this paper he commissioned a drawing from Mary Mason Mitchell to reflect his views of diplodocid posture. There are four individuals in all in the drawing; the two in the foreground are quite unmistakable; there is a third that is swimming in the water, with just its head and back visible, and a fourth lies sprawled out on the distant bank (see detail at right).

Hay first proposed his ideas on Diplodocus posture in 1908, and he received ardent, and perhaps unwelcome, support from an anatomist in Germany, Gustav Tornier. Tornier and Hay were then attacked rather scathingly by William J. Holland in 1910.

The form and attitudes of Diplodocus. This work was on display in the original exhibition as item 25. Image source: Hay, Oliver P. "On the manner of locomotion of the dinosaurs, especially Diplodocus, with remarks on the origin of the birds," in: Proceedings of the Washington Academy of Sciences, vol. 12 (1910), pl. 1. 

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Slinking Diplodocus, 1909

Although Hay published his famous "Sprawling Diplodocus Landscape" in 1910, he had made his first argument for a splayed-out Diplodocus in 1908, and this first article received an enthusiastic reception from a German anatomist, Gustav Tornier. In this 1909 paper, Tornier attempted in great detail to reconstruct the Diplodocus leg bones so that the elbow/knee joints were at a nearly ninety degree angle. And at the end of the article, there was attached a striking folding plate (see below), with a new Diplodocus carnegii skeletal restoration according to Tornier's anatomical re-evaluation. William J. Holland at the Carnegie Museum took great exception to Tornier's reconstruction, and in an article in 1910, Holland rebutted Tornier (and Hay) point by point.

Re-evaluation of Diplodocus restoration by Tornier. This work is part of our History of Science Collection, but it was NOT included in the original exhibition. Image source: Tornier, Gustav. "Wie war der Diplodocus carnegii wirklich gebaut?" in: Sitzungsbericht der Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin, Jahrgang 1909, tab. 2.

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Holland Makes Hay, 1910

Holland's illustration of Tornier's reconstruction, showing the hind limbs of Diplodocus. This work is part of our History of Science Collection, but it was NOT included in the original exhibition. Image source: Holland, William J. "A review of some recent criticisms of the restorations of sauropod dinosaurs existing in the museums of the United States, with special reference to that of Diplodocus carnegii in the Carnegie Museum," in: American Naturalist, vol 44 (1910), p. 268.

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Before publishing this paper, Holland presented it to the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America, and he illustrated his talk with projected images from a stereopticon. One of the images was what Holland called the “skeletal monstrosity perpetrated by Tornier. As a contribution to the literature of caricature the success achieved is remarkable.” He must have brought the house down when he got to figure 9, which shows how the Tornier version of Diplodocus must have moved. 

“It has been suggested that kindly Nature, to meet the requirements of the case, must have channeled the surface of the earth and provided the Diplodocus and its allies with troughs… The Diplodocus must have moved in a groove or a rut. This might perhaps account for his early extinction.”