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Re: late night thoughts: misunderstand neck?




For a guaranteed-fatal single bite the rex would have to bite *really* close to the head. I'm guessing sauropods would rather keep their heads away from large predators if at all possible, so they'd be doing everything in their power to avoid such an encounter. And their 'power' would have been considerable.

I think the biggest danger to a megapredator feeding on sauropods (by attacking the neck) is getting blinded by all the blood.


(after all, the blood needs a lot of pressure to shoot up to the head, no matter what the neck angle is)



What trees? What evidence is there that sauropods lived *amongst* trees? I think it's more likely they spent more time in open terrain at forest borders (for those that actually fed on trees) than cruising amongst them. Sauropods with low-slung heads (like diplodocids) needn't have gone anywhere near trees at all. Those long necks and tails would have made navigating amongst trees a nightmare.

isn't it a moot point?: what trees existed back then? certainly not the branch-rich trees descended from the flowering plants.


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