Chins up, sauropods!

. . . after studying X-rays of members of 10 different vertebrate groups, Dr Taylor is convinced that when they were not reaching down for a drink, the sauropods stood with their heads held very high indeed.

With their necks aloft, like giraffes, the dinosaurs would have towered up to 15m above the ground.

Dr Taylor and his colleagues found that the necks of mammals and birds - the only modern groups that share the upright leg posture of dinosaurs - are "strongly inclined" vertically.

"Our approach was embarrassingly straightforward," said Dr Taylor. "We looked at real animals, and at the whole animal."

Paul Barrett, a palaeontologist from London's Natural History Museum, thinks the sauropods were likely to have been able to lift their heads high, but he remains unconvinced that would have been their "resting posture". . .

"Sauropods are bizarre," he told BBC News. "There is no living animal built in the same way."

So, although the study of living animals' skeletons is very valuable, he added, "finding a model to explain the biology of these creatures is not that easy"

Posted by David on May 27, 2009 8:55 AM