Re: Gallery and Commentary for Copenhagen Mamenchisaurus - apologies to Mike

[Amtoine Grant <ajgrant@eastlink.ca>]

Yes, but as with giraffes , the trunk extends vertically - on the 
vertical basis, a giraffe's neck is a few times long than it needs to 
reach the food at the top of it's shoulders. Their head also isn't at 
the end of it - they'd be constantly knocking themselves out as they 
walk through the forests and what have you. And on the elephant note, 
didn't elephants descendants have longer necks although they where 
closer to the ground. as they grew taller in size, their must've found 
it easier to just use their trunk as their primary source of gathering 
food since it was so good at it, and versatile.
The descendants of sauropods, the prosauropods, already had relatively 
long necks for their body size. apparently they just stayed on that 
[dis]proportionate path as they grew in size, albeit as their predators 
grew in size as well - probably attempting(and at some evolutionary 
points, succeeding) in attaining an elephant-like status, as in being 
able to 'chill' and do your thing knowing that none of the dominant 
predators in your area will mess with you. . .

On Friday, June 25, 2004, at 02:33  AM, John Hunt wrote:

> Except no elephant has a trunk three times longer than it needs to 
> reach
> the ground!