Re: Dwarf quadruped dinosaurs

["David Marjanovic" <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> OK, my first attempt was to write 'no larger than elephant size', but
> watching the collections of the Lillo Institute, La Plata and Cinco Saltos
> materials you would easily realize that most saltasaurines, and especially
> Neuquensaurus, had humerii lenght ranging from 45 to 60 cm, and femora
close
> to 1 m in length.

Hm... that lets me guess perhaps 1.7 m at the shoulder and 2 m at the hip...
not unlike a small elephant. Or a moose.

> Do you want them to reach 10 m? So add them a long tail
> and neck,

Already included. If the neck is, just off the top of my head, twice as long
as the trunk, the trunk around the length of a hindlimb, and the tail 3
times as long as the trunk, we arrive at 9 m... +- at least 2. Such
proportions sound somewhat diplodocid, though.

> but their bodies and their mass are between a horse and an
> elephant, no more.

Sounds likely.

> ps: Oh, by the way, argentinian horses, extant and fossils (Hippidion) are
> specially low, but this has probably nothing to do with sauropod history.

B-)