Re: Long-necked stegosaur coming out in Proceedings B

[Tim Williams <tijawi@yahoo.com>]

> "... two scenarios are possible."
> 
> "The first is that the long neck might have permitted it to
> browse for foliage at a height not 
> frequented by other prehistoric animals. The second is that
> males and females might have found 
> the trait appealing, so it evolved due to sexual selection.


I would have suggested a third possibility (not the same as Dann's), which is 
that a longer neck would allow a better 'look-out' to scour the terrain for 
approaching predators.  Interestingly, this idea is implicitly contradicted by 
the paper:

"By contrast, the long neck of _Miragaia_ incurred a survival cost because it 
presented a greater predation target for medium to large-sized
theropods..."

I'm not sure I understand this point, because surely a stegosaur like 
_Miragaia_ would confront an approaching predator tail-first (= 
'thagomizer-first') rather than head-first.


Cheers

Tim