Re: [dinosaur] Submerged sauropods

[Gregory Paul <gsp1954@aol.com>]

In whales the lungs are set up up under the roof of the ribcage for reasons that are obvious, and are about 2 m below water level with the back at the surface.

From what I know whales exhale while the lungs are still fairly deep and water pressure does the work, and inhale when horizontal to minimize the muscle work.  

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Taylor <sauropoda@gmail.com>
To: Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>
Cc: dinosaur-l <dinosaur-l@usc.edu>
Sent: Thu, Oct 10, 2019 5:57 pm
Subject: Re: [dinosaur] Submerged sauropods

They would likely not have been able to inspire when their lungs were more than a meter below the surface of the water â at least, that's the conclusion from Kermack.

(I wonder how far below the surface the lungs of big whales are.)

-- Mike.

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 at 22:49, Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au> wrote:

On Thu, Oct 10th, 2019 at 11:22 PM, Mike Taylor <sauropoda@gmail.com> wrote:

> Kermack's reasoning is rock-solid, and there is essentially no possibility
> of snorkelling sauropods. As Kermack himself noted in the closing words of
> his paper, "If the sauropods were, in fact, aquatic, they probably lived
> much the same sort of life as the present-day Hippopotamus, swimming and
> diving in the water, and walking along the bottom. To breathe, however,
> they would have needed to raise their body nearly, if not quite, to the
> surface."
>
> -- Mike.

It makes you wonder how elasmosaurids or tanystropheids managed to breathe. Would they have needed
to surface completely with their bodies held horizontal?

--
Dann Pigdon