RE: Bipedal apatosaurs and stegosaurs?

[Rich Travsky <rtravsky@UWYO.EDU>]

On Tue, 8 Oct 1996, Cunningham, Betty wrote:
> [...]
> (speculation:behavior)
>      I still believe that the sauropods most effective feeding method   
> would be for the larger animals to 'walk' up a tree trunk with their   
> heavily clawed front feet as stabilizers for the inital placement of the   
> front feet on the tree, and then to walk or lean into the tree so as to   
> knock it over or at least get it to tip mightily.  

I would half expect a sauropod could just as easily use their long
necks to manhandle trees - smaller ones anyway. Twenty feet of muscled
neck packs a wallop. That same neck seems, to me, that it would've
made it more difficult for the sauropod to see what was happening. Could
it rear its neck back enough? Hmmm.

>      Which MIGHT account for the lesser weight on the front legs, as   
> these need to be able to rear up (as suggested by GSP) against the total   
> weight of the animal, without needing the center of gravity to shift as   
> much as walking bipedally as an upright locomotion would.  And MIGHT have   
> a reason for the heavily clawed front toes.  

Sounds like it might be related to rear mount mating.

+----------+    Rich Travsky   RTRAVSKY @ UWYO . EDU
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