Re: Gallery and Commentary for Copenhagen Mamenchisaurus

[Graydon <oak@uniserve.com>]

On Wed, Jun 23, 2004 at 06:33:14AM -0700, T. Michael Keesey scripsit:
> --- Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com> wrote:
> > So the basic problem of sauropod neck posture is that the morphology
> > seems to tell us one thing, whereas energetic and evolutionary
> > considerations tell us another.  If you can resolve this
> > contradiction, you will make me a happy man.
[snip] 
> --- Graydon <oak@uniserve.com> wrote:
> > Apatosaurs and diplodocids generally are prime candidates for rearing to
> > eat from tree crowns; is there a way to tell the difference between a
> > horizontal neck posture in a quadrupedal stance and a vertical posture
> > in a bipedal stance?
> 
> Exactly! (Minor nitpick, though: _Apatosaurus_ *is* a diplodocid [although not
> a diplodocine].)

I should have written that "Apatosaurus specifically and diplodocids
generally".

I was trying to address the (absent) parts of Mike's original post which
included the mention that Apatosaurus and Diplodocus were both
specifically found to have "lawn mower" necks -- sub-horizontal.

Which is just about perfect if you have your big front feet on the tree,
if what you are trying to eat is near to the bole.  Since it would
presumably not be -- you want the tips of branches and the leaves
thereupon -- I'm not entirely comfortable with this line of argument as
an entire solution for neck posture.

-- 
"But how powerful, how stimulating to the very faculty which produced
it, was the invention of the adjective: no spell or incantation in
Faerie is more potent." -- "On Fairy-Stories", J.R.R. Tolkien