Re: Sauropod nostrils (was RE: joke........)

[Betty Cunningham <bettyc@flyinggoat.com>]

Giraffes, tree-browsing antelope, goats, and camels don't have a
nostril-in-the-front problem as they can protect the delicate inner
tissues by pinching shut the external nares.  
I >beleive< we've already esatblished dinosaurs simply didn't have the
facial muscle flexibility to do this. 

So would spiky browsing have come first for nostrils-on-the-top, or
would they have had some alternative feeding mechanism originally and
then moved onto spikey trees?
Why would they have developed nostrils-on-top in the first place?

-Betty

"Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." wrote:
> And, of course, simply getting the nostrils out of the way of the feeding
> area, so the sauropod could be munching leaves without getting twigs in its
> nostrils...

-- 
Flying Goat Graphics
http://www.flyinggoat.com
(Society of Vertebrate Paleontology member)
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