Re: Diplodocus: Return to the Swamps????

[Jonas Weselake-George <Paleo@ncf.ca>]

Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au> wrote:
"It goes in splayed with plenty of resistance (limiting the depth of 
penetration), but is drawn out with converged toes that offer far less 
resistance. Sauropods, on the other hand, would have had to fight each step to 
extract a foot from deep mud. That's bound to tire a large animal out after a 
while."

What about taking into account mass (and muscle mass) vs. limb surface area? It 
would seem to me that a fifteen ton sauropod would experience less relative 
suction than a one ton theropod. What do you think? 

Additionally, the sauropod would tend to punch through to the substrate more 
easily and would also have four limbs for balance. I'm not arguing that it'd be 
easy, but a large sauropod might have an advantage in moving through a swamp 
(not that it is very likely a theropod one fifteenth its weight would have a 
motivation to follow). 

A more likely situation would be sauropods taking advantage of the mud to mate 
(after all I saw a paper suggesting that an early cretaceous ornithopod 
population was using swamps for shelter during the breeding season).

S!

-Jonas Weselake-George