The sauropod snorkel wasn’t an ad hoc invention to explain amphibious dinosaurs. Nasal bones on sauropod skulls really do open up further back on the skull, far from the snout and closer to the eyes. If the nasal opening was there, researchers reasoned, then the external nostrils must have been in the same place. Even as paleontologists rehabilitated sauropods and moved them out of Mesozoic bogs, the noses of Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus, and kin remained atop their heads in art and scientific restorations, and expression of the bony architecture underneath.

But, contrary to the long-running tradition of “shrink-wrapping” dinosaurs in a minimum of muscle and skin, the skulls of sauropods and the anatomy of living animals