Re: Re[Re:Sauropod Neck]

[Betty Cunningham <bettyc@flyinggoat.com>]

Quetzecoatlus northropi seems to also have had a VERY stiff neck.  For a
flight-capable animal with a 10 foot long neck it was rather strongly
reinforced and probably didn't have much freedom of movement in many
directions.

Sibbick shows this stiffness in two of his line drawings of Quetz in the
_Encyclopdeia of Pterosaurs_

-Betty

Tracy Ford wrote:
> 
> >>The recently published works on sauropod necks are >really< interesting
> and
> have proven to be very inspiring in terms of speculation about the feeding
> behavior of these creatures. But I simply find it hard to accept, from a
> "gestalt" point of view, that the long necks of these animals had such
> limited range of motion.  I can't think of any modern vertebrate analog with
> more than 8 cervical vertebrae that have anywhere near the limited range of
> motion proposed by some for sauropods.  Has anyone applied the osteological
> methods used to evaluate sauropod neck mobility to the cervical vertebrae of
> modern long necked birds or even long necked mammals?  Every day I drive
> past a farm with a small flock of Emus and a small herd Alpacas--both of
> which are long neck species with necks that have at least a 270 degrees of
> motion in all planes.  As far as I can tell, sauropods would be unique among
> the archosaurs--and among vertebrates for that matter-- in having such a
> limited range of neck motion.  Perhaps speculation from fossilized cervical
> vertebrae is correct and they were limited in that fashion, but if they were
> I think the question is what advantage did that offer, rather than how they
> survived with that "limitation".<<
> 
> You have to remember the neck of an Emu and a sauropod, though both long are
> not constructed the same. Just because both have long necks doesn't mean
> they both functioned the same way.
> Tracy

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