Drinking Sauropods

[MarkSabercat@aol.com]

On Dec. 25, 2003, Ken Carpenter wrote:

<<But if sauropods had to drink like birds, that is heads up, letting 
gravity pull the water down their throats, then nostril position is not an 
issue.
Ken>>

I agree that drinking like this might have been possible, but not likely. In 
this scenario a sauropod would have to raise its head each time to get a 
mouthful of water to go down, which would not only require an energy 
expenditure 
using many neck muscles but also a readjustment of the blood column, first to 
stabilize the blood pressure going to the head when it was lowered to drink, 
then to stabilize the drop in pressure when the neck became subvertical. To me 
it 
would be far easier to keep the head down until drinking was finished, with 
the aid of peristalsis (this would probably have been powerful in a sauropod's 
esophagus, due to the need to get relatively bulky, unchewed food back to the 
crop).  --Mark