Forelimb-only tracks need not be evidence for poling. They could simply be
undertracks. In the pterosaur tracks I've seen (first-hand) the hand prints
are deeper than the foot prints.
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Peters" <davidrpeters@earthlink.net>
Sent: Monday, April 17, 2006 12:34 PM
1) As the head rises above the surface [...] This is how
I see Q. raising the shoulders above the surface.
Have I understood this correctly? Are you saying the whole animal was
underwater? Shouldn't it float like a cork -- like a bird, that is? Diving
birds are either pachyostotic or need active swimming movements to stay
underwater; Big Q was at least as pneumatic as any bird, and you are
proposing it almost stood still. I can imagine it wading in, pi times thumb,
2 m deep water; I can imagine it poling; but I can't imagine it submerging
without quite some effort.