Re: sauropod facultative sprawl?

["Demetrios Vital" <demetrios.vital@gmail.com>]

Wow. Is there any way to know whether tracks with wider-guage forelimb 
placement versus narrower-guage forelimb placement come from different taxa, or 
are these trackways too generic (so to speak)?  

Is there any pattern that has so far been discerned concerning the wider 
guages, such as: are they particularly large or small tracks? Do they evidence 
a different gait or speed of locomotion?

Intriguing!

Thanks as always,

Demetrios


------Original Message------
From: James Farlow
Sender: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu
To: DINOSAUR@usc.edu
Cc: dinosaur@usc.edu
ReplyTo: farlow@ipfw.edu
Subject: sauropod facultative sprawl?
Sent: Sep 28, 2011 10:05 AM


> My question was how much else _was_ equal: were sauropods able
> to sprawl their forelimbs? Apparently, *Brachiosaurus* was the only one.

Well, maybe.  I wouldn't want to put TOO much weight on a single
deflected glenoid.  It could be pathology of the individual, or it
could be that Brachiosaurus just ossified more of what would be
cartilaginous in other sauropods.


Farlow:  Something that MAY/may NOT be related to this, but I mention in case 
it might be, is that many--but by no means all--sauropod trackways have 
forefoot (manus) prints of the left and right sides of the trackway whose 
centers  are routinely placed farther away from the trackway midline than are 
the centers of hindfoot (pes) tracks. There is more than one possible 
explanation for this, but one might be that the forelimbs of these animals were 
more flexed at the elbow than in sauropods with different trackway patterns.