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Dancing Jobaria

In my opinion, such a dinosaur could rear up on its back legs on special occasions (defending itself or males mounting a female). In other words, sort of like present-day elephants (in the wild). But this is somewhat risky behavior in large animals, which could result in a dislocated shoulder or broken bones from a fall (or just coming back down too hard).
Every time I have watched Jurassic Park (One), I always wince when that sauropod rears way up to feed off that tall tree and then its weight comes crashing down on it front legs. WHY?? Risking possible injury just for a mouthful of leaves it could have easily gotten by stretching its neck up a bit further. It almost looked like Dino (on the Flintstones) begging for food (i.e., pretty silly).
Anyway I really hate that part of Jurassic Park. It just doesn't make any sense, and also reminds me of elephants dancing in a circus (do they still do that sort of thing?). Such graviportal animals don't normally take that kind of risk in nature unless motivated by fear (or sexual arousal in a male).
That was one of the biggest Jurassic Park blunders of all, and mounting a Jobaria skeleton in such a rare pose seems to be grandstanding (no pun intended) that is just as bad. It's almost as irritating as a documentary dinosaur knocking over the camera. It might even be worse, as it could give some people the idea that Jobaria was bipedal.
----- Ken Kinman
****************************************** 
From: "Aspidel" <aspidel@wanadoo.be>
Reply-To: aspidel@wanadoo.be
To: "The Dinosaur Mailing List" <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Subject: Rearing Jobaria
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 12:22:33 +0100

Hi again,

I'm an amateur paleoartist, so I'll take this example: the rearing _Jobaria_ mounted skeleton:
http://www.angellis.net/Web/Dinofest/jobaria.jpg

Is it plausible or should the dinosaur have broken a femur by doing this, or is there an incorrect interpretation of the articulations?

Thanks in advance - LJB. 



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