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Michael Taylor
PeerJ Author & Reviewer
1,170 Points

Contributions by role

Author 540
Preprint Author 525
Reviewer 105
Preprint Feedback 75
Questions 25
Comment 1
Answers 10

Contributions by subject area

Evolutionary Studies
Paleontology
Zoology
Animal Behavior
Environmental Sciences
Ecology
Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Developmental Biology
Anatomy and Physiology
Marine Biology
Bioinformatics
Science and Medical Education
Science Policy
Human-Computer Interaction
Computer Education
Computer Networks and Communications
Digital Libraries
World Wide Web and Web Science
Statistics

By Q&A topic

Science-and-medical-education
Science-policy
Human-computer-interaction
Computer-education
Computer-networks-and-communications
Digital-libraries
World-wide-web-and-web-science
Statistics
Evolutionary-studies
Paleontology

Michael P Taylor

PeerJ Author & Reviewer

Summary

I am a computer programmer by vocation, but started to study palaeontology in my spare time in 2000. I got my Ph.D from the University of Portsmouth in 2009, and I'm now an honorary research associate at the University of Bristol.

I work on the palaeobiology of sauropods -- the biggest and best of the dinosaurs -- with occasional forays into taxonomy and phylogenetic nomenclature.

I am an advocate of open access, and more generally of transforming our archaic academic publishing practices.

Animal Behavior Biodiversity Evolutionary Studies Paleontology Taxonomy

Editing Journals

Past or current institution affiliations

University of Bristol

Work details

Research Associate

University of Bristol
Department of Earth Sciences

Identities

@MikeTaylor

Websites

  • Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week
  • Publications
  • Google Scholar
  • Open Access advocacy at the Guardian
  • ORCID

PeerJ Contributions

  • Articles 4
  • Preprints 10
  • Reviewed 2
  • Feedback 7
  • Questions 8
  • Answers 2
January 24, 2022
Almost all known sauropod necks are incomplete and distorted
Michael P. Taylor
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12810 PubMed 35127288
July 6, 2018
Xenoposeidon is the earliest known rebbachisaurid sauropod dinosaur
Michael P. Taylor
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5212 PubMed 30002991
December 23, 2014
Quantifying the effect of intervertebral cartilage on neutral posture in the necks of sauropod dinosaurs
Michael P. Taylor
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.712 PubMed 25551027
February 12, 2013
Why sauropods had long necks; and why giraffes have short necks
Michael P. Taylor, Mathew J. Wedel
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.36 PubMed 23638372
September 30, 2019 - Version: 2
What do we mean by the directions “cranial” and “caudal” on a vertebra?
Michael P Taylor, Matthew J Wedel
https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27437v2
September 19, 2019 - Version: 1
The past, present and future of Jensen's “Big Three” sauropods
Michael P Taylor, Mathew J Wedel
https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27970v1
November 15, 2017 - Version: 1
Xenoposeidon is the earliest known rebbachisaurid sauropod dinosaur
Michael P Taylor
https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3415v1
September 21, 2017 - Version: 2
Growth series of one: case studies in time-transgressive morphology
Mathew J Wedel, Brian P Kraatz, Michael P Taylor, Jann Vendetti
https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3162v2
September 8, 2017 - Version: 2
A unique Morrison-Formation sauropod specimen with biconcave dorsal vertebrae
Michael P Taylor, Mathew J Wedel
https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.3144v2
September 13, 2016 - Version: 2
The neck of Barosaurus: longer, wider and weirder than those of Diplodocus and other diplodocines
Michael P Taylor, Mathew J Wedel
https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.67v2
October 6, 2015 - Version: 1
Almost all known sauropod necks are incomplete and distorted
Michael P Taylor
https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1418v1
September 7, 2015 - Version: 1
Were the necks of Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus adapted for combat?
Michael P Taylor, Mathew J Wedel, Darren Naish, Brian Engh
https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.1347v1
December 6, 2014 - Version: 2
Quantifying the effect of intervertebral cartilage on neutral posture in the necks of sauropod dinosaurs
Michael P Taylor
https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.588v2
July 11, 2014 - Version: 1
A survey of dinosaur diversity by clade, age, place of discovery and year of description
Michael P Taylor
https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.434v1

Signed reviews submitted for articles published in PeerJ Note that some articles may not have the review itself made public unless authors have made them open as well.

July 24, 2018
The real Bigfoot: a pes from Wyoming, USA is the largest sauropod pes ever reported and the northern-most occurrence of brachiosaurids in the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation
Anthony Maltese, Emanuel Tschopp, Femke Holwerda, David Burnham
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5250 PubMed 30065867
May 2, 2017
Osteology of Galeamopus pabsti sp. nov. (Sauropoda: Diplodocidae), with implications for neurocentral closure timing, and the cervico-dorsal transition in diplodocids
Emanuel Tschopp, Octávio Mateus
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.3179 PubMed 28480132

Provided feedback on

1 vote
27 Sep 2013

BioNames: linking taxonomy, texts, and trees

This will be tremendously more useful for most purposes if the BioNames pages link to their Wikipedia equivalents. (Yes, that's a comment on the project more than on the paper that...

1 vote
26 Jul 2014

Journal title abbreviations should be eliminated in the digital age

Absolutely, definitively, unquestionably correct. It's hard to imagine a more pointless waste of researcher time than searching the numerous incompatible list of journal title abbr...

25 Nov 2014

Quantifying the effect of intervertebral cartilage on neutral posture in the necks of sauropod dinosaurs

Note to self: see what light Zammit et al. 2008, on plesiosaur neck flexibility, shines on sauropods. My thanks to Adam Stuart Smith for his blog-post http://plesiosauria.com/news/...

13 Jul 2015

Understanding text-based persuasion and support tactics of concerned significant others

This is a bit of a hobby-horse of mine, but ... Can you please revise the abstract so that it says what you discovered? "Results indicate that there was a significant relationsh...

07 Oct 2015

Almost all known sauropod necks are incomplete and distorted

In [a comment on SV-POW!](http://svpow.com/2015/10/06/my-most-depressing-paper/#comment-131464), Oliver Demuth rightly reminds me that the neck of the diplodocine _Kaatedocus_ (Tsc...

07 Oct 2015

Almost all known sauropod necks are incomplete and distorted

In a private email (which I have permission to quote), Matt Lamanna very helpfully reminds me of several other complete or near-complete necks. Read on ... -- **Date:** 7 Oct...

16 Nov 2017

Xenoposeidon is the earliest known rebbachisaurid sauropod dinosaur

Comment from Darren Naish: "The Ashdown Beds Fm is now just the Ashdown Formation". I'll make that change in the revisions.

8 Questions

4
Where are the graphs?
about Have the “mega-journals” reached the limits to growth?
1
This paper in other formats
about Formatting Open Science: agilely creating multiple document formats for academic manuscripts with Pandoc Scholar
0
Cartliage thickness
about Neck mobility in the Jurassic plesiosaur Cryptoclidus eurymerus: finite element analysis as a new approach to understanding the cervical skeleton in fossil vertebrates
0
Incorrect reference to Taylor and Wedel (2013)
about Neck mobility in the Jurassic plesiosaur Cryptoclidus eurymerus: finite element analysis as a new approach to understanding the cervical skeleton in fossil vertebrates
0
A note on prior art
about Xenoposeidon is the earliest known rebbachisaurid sauropod dinosaur
0
What happened to scholarlymarkdown.com?
about Formatting Open Science: agilely creating multiple document formats for academic manuscripts with Pandoc Scholar
0
Did you consider the work of Brembs et al. (2013) on retraction:IF correlation?
about Improving the peer-review process and editorial quality: key errors escaping the review and editorial process in top scientific journals
0
Is the 3D data available in an open format?
about An interactive three dimensional approach to anatomical description—the jaw musculature of the Australian laughing kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae)

2 Answers

0
Incorrect reference to Taylor and Wedel (2013)
0
Cartliage thickness