Re: Mamenchisaurus Posture Paper

["Richard W. Travsky" <rtravsky@uwyo.edu>]

On Wed, 1 Jun 2005, Roger Seymour wrote:
> frank bliss wrote:
> > [...]
> > to speak).  Is the mainstream opinion that they were high browsers? (Do
> > their neck verts allow articulation in that way?) Is it necessary to
> > look for a mechanism to allow high browsing when it may not have been a
> > method used for feeding.  (Granted it has to be thought out.)
> 
> Yes, I believe that the high browsing is favored, and some (including the
> Barosaurus in the AMNH) have sauropods tripoding to reach higher.   I prefer

This ability of course calls for strong neck muscles. How much over
engineering (so to speak) is there in a sauropod neck? That is, extra
lifting capacity? I'm thinking of a situation where predators would
hang onto the neck - like, say, a lion would, tho not necessarily for
purposes of suffocation here. This would be weight it would have to
support.

> [...]
> So whales do not worry about blood pressure problems; they seem to have

And speaking of blood pressure, the activities mentioned so far are
stressless in nature (eating). What happens when the animal is stressed, 
as in mating or being attacked? BP increases. How do giraffes (as the
only apparent analog) handle it?

> [...]