Re: sauropod rearing

["Richard W. Travsky" <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006, Chris Glen wrote:
> > When elephants rear they flex the knees strongly. The pelvic muscles 
> > probably
> > cannot properly function when the hios are tilted up and I don't think
> > elephants can walk on two legs, but I'm not entirely sure because I cannot 
> > entirely
> > recall what circus elephants are capable of.
>
> I have recollections of seeing circus elephants having some limited bipedal 
> locomotion - rearing up and turning around on the spot, and bizarrely I think 
> I have seen them perform conga line - this is a vague memory (could be 
> erroneous or elaborated), never thought I'd need to recall it in detail. I 
> wouldn't say they were the most nimble things on two legs...
>
> Anyway, I guess this suggests it would be worth finding out what trained 
> elephants can do (caveat being they are trained to do it, and most this 
> ability is probably size or age dependant).

The conga line bit is/was a cliche I thought.

 http://www.curtiseller.com/images/elephantlinks.jpg

As far as other circus tricks

http://planete.qc.ca/floride/flashfloride/images/circus-elephants.jpg

http://www-cgi.cnn.com/EARTH/9511/sri_lanka_elephants/elephants_circus.jpg

http://elephant.elehost.com/Multimedia_Page/Videos/circus-of-abuse.jpg