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Jeff Wilson wrote:
>Date: Wed, 01 Sep 1999 15:51:57 -0500 >From: Jeffrey Willson <jwillson@harper.cc.il.us> >To: dinosaur@usc.edu >Subject: PARTICULAR sauropods aquatic? >Message-ID: <199909012053.PAA13563@info1.harper.cc.il.us">199909012053.PAA13563@info1.harper.cc.il.us> >The 30 Aug 1999 post from "Thomas R. Holtz, Jr." <tholtz@geol.umd.edu> >"Sauropod nostrils (was RE: joke........)" inspired a thought -- >>Breathing while most of the body is underwater (okay, does not work for >sauropods, as established long ago, but in vertebrate history >this seems >to be the main factor in narial retraction) >My understanding is that it was "established" that this "does not work" >based primarily on the observation that a sauropod's lungs would have been >multiple meters below the surface, water pressure prevents the beast from >inhaling, etc. Ok,...I admit I haven`t read that study "proving" that
Sauropods couldn`t breath while submerged, but something dosen`t sound right
about it (to me). Were they thinking that Sauropods were stretching their necks
straight up to reach the surface? What would they be doing that far down? When
Whales breach, aren`t their lungs a similar distance below the surface? (Ok
...here I assume the Sauropods went no deeper than their backs being perhaps a
meter below the surface.) What about Pleisiosaurs?? Did they have to entirely
float on the surface to catch a breath?? Don`t hippos brreath just by
putting their noses to the surface?? Surely Sauropods were proportionately built
with larger stronger rib cages and mechanism for inhaling ( I didn`t say
diagaphragm, who knows how,...but nature does find a way...dosen`t
it?)
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