Sauropod necks (was: New dino topic...)

[Luis Oscar Romero <legolas@abaconet.com.ar>]

A couple of layman's ideas:

Since gastroliths have been found in many sauropod fossils (flame if I'm
wrong) I believe that, no matter what the neck normal position was, all
of the big guys should be very capable of lowering their heads to the
ground. Rocks don't grow on trees (neither water, for that matter!)

Also, the tendon running from head to tail atop the spine (the bridge
structure theory) would have made the horizontal position quite logic,
with little stress going into neck muscles. Most (all?) of the head
weight would have been transfered to the limbs by this arrangement.

Oscar