Re: Dinosaur tail dragging

[PTJN@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/4/98 10:55:25 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
102354.2222@compuserve.com writes:

<<  In a talk with Don Burge (College of Eastern Utah) a couple of years ago,
he informed me that several of the now-closed sections of coal mine in the
vicinity of Price, UT (where most of the famous coal mine prints have been
found) show lengthy sections of trackway of probably hadrosaur and ceratopsian
origin with long tail drags. >>

 A question for Jerry or for some engineers out there (Jim Cunningham?): Would
it be energetically less expensive for an animal like a large sauropod to hold
its tail off the ground or to drag it?  In the first instance, you are
fighting gravity and in second, friction (not to mention wear and tail on the
tail itself).  A lot of assumptions are necessary for this type of
estimate--all of which others on this list are better able to describe than am
I. Among them-(in a "tails up" scenario) what is the contribution of ligaments
to holding the tail off the ground (thereby offsetting any muscular energy).
In a "tails down" scenario, what was the mass and the friction coefficient of
a dinosaur tail?  How much time did they spend moving, as opposed to standing
still?

Personally, the (overwhelming) absence of tail drag traces among dinosaur
trackways leads me to believe they did not drag their tails.  But I've never
seen an analysis of this based on erergetics.

Pat Norton