From your description I don't know which references you do have, but check out http://www.pnas.org/content/111/45/16047.abstract (title: remodeling in bone without osteocytes: billfish challenge bone structure-function paradigms)

Thanks! I was missing that one work.

Best Regards,

Juan Francisco.

Kenneth, thanks for the interest in our paper, it's nice knowing people are reading it :)

Juan Francisco, we found little previous structural work on Xiphias, and it was typically either shown via hand drawings or in individual histological images where it was hard to understand how the tissue structure fit into the context of the whole bill.  Still, some of those previous studies were really useful starting points for us - we ended up citing them mostly in the supplemental information of the paper, here is a version with that attached.

Best wishes,

Mason

Dear Mason:

Thank you very much for your paper; it is a fine work.

Regards,

Juan Francisco.

glad to share, thanks for the interest - if you end up doing anything with Xiphias, we'd love to hear about it, they're fantastic animals!

cheers,

Mason

Dear Juan Francisco,

Please find the attached file. I hope it will be able to help you.

Shahram