Re: Brachiosaur flexibility and face-shape (Was: Terra Nova: thoughts)

[Mike Taylor <mike@indexdata.com>]

On 28 September 2011 15:23, David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at> wrote:
>>  I have sometimes wondered whether perhaps adult sauropods, in at
>>  least some lineages, NEVER bent their limbs or moved them far from
>>  vertical. If that's so, then they would have avoided the enormous
>>  joint stresses involved in lying down and getting back up again. But
>>  they would have had to do without deep sleep. Then again, since
>>  no-one really has much idea about sauropod sleep anyway, I wouldn't
>>  discount it.
>
> I once read the idea that sauropods slept standing up somewhere long ago. Of
> course, it may have been proposed by someone who didn't know that all extant
> birds and mammals, even ostriches and zebras, lie down _sometime_ in their
> sleep.

Just to be clear ...  I am not one of those people :-)  I have known
Darren Naish for long enough that I couldn't possibly have avoided
learning this if I'd wanted to.  So what I am suggesting is that
sauropods were, in this respect, different from every everything else.
 Which is not a huge stretch.

>>  No need. Because unlike giraffes, sauropods had long necks.
>
> I'm _so_ going to steal this.

Too late!  My SVPCA 2010 talks was entitled "Why giraffes have such
short necks" (and the paper containing that material will be a so
titled if the journal doesn't force me to change it).

-- Mike.