Re: PARTICULAR sauropods aquatic?

["RAY STANFORD" <STARSONG@prodigy.net>]

Dinogeorge makes some excellent and important points, below:


"The problem I had with this explanation is that the hind feet, which in
sauropods carry quite a bit more of the weight than the front feet, would
have left stronger and deeper impressions than the front feet. I believe
that
in sauropod trackways that show both hind foot and forefoot impressions, the
forefoot impressions are generally weaker. Plus there is one hind foot
impression in the trackway, at the point where the trackway changes
direction--as if the animal used its hind foot once, to kick itself into a
new direction off the substrate. Why would just this one print remain, if
all
the other prints were originally present but didn't make it to the
undertrack
level?"

    IMHO Lockley (with whose works I am well familiar) has not really
succeed in 'de-mythologizing' swimming Sauropods.  The jury is indeed still
out.

    Come to think of it, if Sauropods couldn't swim, wouldn't they be maybe
the only vertebrates that couldn't?  Isn't swimming is a very important
survival tactic for many (if not all) animals, even to some (really, many, I
guess) invertebrates?  As to swimming by Sauropods, I am not equating
swimming with diving.

    Swimmers or not, Sauropods surely liked to track around on beaches, in
shallow lagoons, and other muddy places. Vast numbers of Sauropod trackways
testify to this fact.  What other vertebrates can we name that do likewise
and CAN'T (or couldn't) swim?  So, my bet goes to an ability of Sauropods to
swim (or at least to do a bit of "dog paddling".  How likely they were to do
so (or under what circumstances) is another question.

    Ray Stanford