SAUROPOD NECKS & "VICTORIAN" ILLUSTRATIONS

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

Having just waded through god knows how many dinosaur-related 
emails, I've been interested to follow the discussions about sauropod 
necks and feeding style. Some thoughts, or, a European perspective...

-- The 'European school of beam-like necks' (yours truly a former 
member) - relying mostly on ideas about cervical rib mobility - has 
been effectively refuted by Matt Wedel et al in their work on 
_Sauroposeidon_. 

-- The models of Kent Stevens et al are therefore the best argument for 
the presence of relatively inflexible necks. However, these have been 
criticised by those who know sauropod morphology very very well and 
the only published results thus far concern diplodocoids, a group 
already thought by most to be horizontal-necked.

-- Those who work on tooth microwear seem pretty confident that 
diplodocoids were not feeding at ground level.

On the subject of the accuracy of old illustrations, Jaime wrote...

> These are carbon-dust illustrations, and I would agree that the
> artist who performed them, as was popular at the time, was in excellent shape
> to follow the specimens exactly. For instance, look at work in the
> monographs popular in England and elsewhere in Europe in the late
> 1800's where the illustrations are almost better than bone. 

Though some Victorian-era and younger illustrations might be 
tremendously accurate, others are certainly not, and indeed some are 
downright misleading. Of incidental note here is that BMNH R1828 
[_Becklespinax_/_Altispinax_] differs in various minor ways from the 
fold-out plate in Owen (1858). Of relevance to Jaime's contention is 
stuff I learnt from Kent Stevens regarding the figures of 
_Brachiosaurus_ in Janensch's papers: Kent relied on these diagrams 
for his reconstruction of the brachiosaur neck (presented at SVPCA 
Edinburgh, 1999), but only after comparing their measurements with 
those of the Berlin mount. Apparently the diagrams are super-accurate 
down to the mm. 

And I like to think it was thanks to me that Kent came up with the idea 
of dissecting camels and okapis:) (He did not see Jeff Wilson's talk at 
SVP Denver). Shame about the horizontal-necked macronarians 
though...:)

DARREN NAISH 
PALAEOBIOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP
School of Earth & Environmental Sciences
UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH
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