re:blood flow in sauropods

["Cunningham, Betty" <bcunning@nssi.com>]

     > You are being species-biased towards mammals.
     > Geese, ostriches, emus, storks, herons, flamingos, and loons all
     > have long necks. Emus, flamingos, and ostriches even fit into the
     > proportion of length-of-neck-to-body-length similar to sauropods.
     > They are none of them high browsers.  Not even the 
     > vegetarian-oriented geese.  They graze.
     
     @A curious question:  many of the birds you mentioned are magnitudes
     @of scale smaller than the long-necked mammals -- is it possible that 
     @these grazing, long-necked birds evolved the long necks to be able to 
     @spot potential incoming trouble in the high grasses (etc.)?  
     @Obviously, this doesn't apply to sauropods, but...
     @-Jerry D. Harris
     
     Not very likely in the cases of the loon, flamingo, stork, and heron, 
     as they are mostly wading fish-eaters, and have long necks to counter 
     the long legs they've developed for wading.  (also loons evolved 
     before grasses, they've been found in dinosaur sites in Antartica.)  
     However it doesn't explain the origin of the long neck in the 
     land-bound emu or ostrich; I don't really know what they eat...grains? 
     (On the African savannah?)
     Geese are vegetarians that will opportunisticly eat fish, insects, 
     slugs, and anything else, but need vegetation.
     
     *No low browsing bird has a neck much over a meter long, they are very 
     *different from the extraordinary necks of most sauropods.
     *-GSPaul
     
     I did say that the necks of the long-necked birds were IN PROPORTION 
     to the ratio-of-body-to-neck-length of sauropods.  What else has had 
     the tiny head mounted on an over-sized neck, attached to a body more 
     proportioned for the head-size than the neck-size?
     
     > -- is it possible that these grazing, long-necked birds evolved the 
     >long necks to be able to spot potential incoming trouble in the high 
     >grasses (etc.)?  Obviously, this doesn't apply to sauropods, but...
     >Jerry D. Harris
     
     +Why not?  After all, their predators were magnitudes of scale bigger 
     +than goose predators, too!
     +-Ronald I. Orenstein   
     
     No grass was around for the sauropods to evolve long necks to see 
     over.;]   And any predator that was dangerous to a sauropod would 
     either travel in numbers large enough to spot with regular placed 
     necks (if the pack-hunting theory is correct) or be large enough to 
     spot by itself (you hide a 3 ton predator behind a tree, just go 
     ahead)
     What would the sauropod need to have a neck be taller than?  A 
     sequoia?  A Douglas-fir?  A willow?  All of the supposed 
     sauropod-hunters are shorter than these.
     
     -Betty Cunningham
     (bettyc@flyinggoat.com in the studio)
     (bcunning@nssi.com at work)