Re: Blood pressure in Sauropoda

This finally puts to rest the arguments of Choy/Altman that sauropods possessed multiple hearts: the intermediate evolutionary stages for a fully functional heart would serve no purpose.

Haven't read the paper, but while I don't believe strongly in multiple hearts, I can imagine 2 ways around this problem: either the intermediate stage were thick contractile neck arteries (IMHO this can easily have been the final stage), or multiple real hearts appeared due to some sort of Hox fluke. Whether the latter is possible is probably testable.

Also of interest is: Andreas Christian & Wolf-Dieter Heinrich, 1998. "The neck posture of Brachiosaurus brancai", Mitteilungen aus dem Museum f[ü]r Naturkunde zu Berlin Geowissenschaftenliche Reihe 1:73-80.
Most sauropods held their necks in a horizontal position, except for the brachiosaurs with their vertical necks -- and it is this taxon which is in need of further anatomical deductions.

I've got the opportunity to read this interesting paper. It concerns only Giraffatitan brancai and no other sauropods, about which it only includes cautionary notes about diversity. It arrives at the conclusion that G. held its neck vertically by measuring the areas of the intervertebral disks and calculating stresses. Unlike the paper that concludes that all sauropod necks were horizontal (ref later if needed), it considers the cervical ribs resistant against tension -- so that the head didn't fall on the back -- rather than as resistant against compression and providing the ventral bracing of a beam.

A.H. Rossof

Does this f happen to be a Polish l with a / through it?

and as yet unexplained to my satisfaction is how the tracheal "dead space" in the neck was overpowered, as it were, by the respiratory system's musculature.

Air sacs.