Re: [dinosaur] Giant sauropod sleeping posture

[Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>]

On Sat, Jul 6th, 2019 at 5:41 PM, Poekilopleuron <dinosaurtom2015@seznam.cz> 
wrote:

> Good day to all listmembers, I was wondering what was the most likely posture
> of giant (say over 50 tonnes) sauropods during the sleep. Were they sleeping
> standing all the time or was there a way for them to lower themselves on the
> ground and then raise up again? Is there any paper dedicated to this
> interesting theme? Thank you very much! Tom

It's always possible that they never completely fell asleep at all. Extant 
cetaceans (and many bird species) 
exhibit unihemispheric slow-wave sleep, where only half of the brain sleeps at 
any one time.
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov_pubmed_18602158_&d=DwIDAw&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=Ry_mO4IFaUmGof_Yl9MyZgecRCKHn5g4z1CYJgFW9SI&m=AsRdVRvWfB1-tLbIXyOUHzQVAfMld40V8GxnYEpdvBY&s=o7Pc8lgecZNojSjVzjii7cyJdwwOIi3hHzkNBBWSuWg&e=
  

One study of wild African elephants revealed that they didn't sleep at all some 
nights, with an overall 
average of just two hours of sleep per night (much of that achieved while 
standing up).
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__researchnews.plos.org_2017_03_01_african-2Delephants-2Dsleep-2Donly-2Dtwo-2Dhours-2Da-2Dday_&d=DwIDAw&c=clK7kQUTWtAVEOVIgvi0NU5BOUHhpN0H8p7CSfnc_gI&r=Ry_mO4IFaUmGof_Yl9MyZgecRCKHn5g4z1CYJgFW9SI&m=AsRdVRvWfB1-tLbIXyOUHzQVAfMld40V8GxnYEpdvBY&s=Lf-bBSwDL-cQzFn7yl8fUHqOe0o_snCnbssQgvXr9CE&e=
  

If there is a general trend of inverse correlation between herbivore size and 
sleep duration, and that 
relationship held true for non-avian dinosaurs, then perhaps species as large 
as sauropods required almost 
no sleep at all as large adults.

--
Dann Pigdon