Sauropods held their necks erect

14th October 2008

[Click on any image to view the high-resolution version.]

The sauropods were the largest of all the dinosaurs, attaining lengths of over 30m and weighing up to 70 tonnes -- ten times as much as a large African elephant. Sauropod skeletons form the centerpieces of many museums (Diplodocus in the Natural History Museum, London; Cetiosaurus in Leicester City Museum; Brachiosaurus in the Humboldt Musuem für Naturkunde, Berlin). They are immediately recognisable by their very long necks, which carry small heads. This will be a page for the media to find out about the neck-posture paper, like the one I did for Xenoposeidon. There are only images here so far, though.

Here are some unrestrained awake animals:

References

Here are the references to papers and presentations I've mentioned on this page:

• Taylor, Michael P., Mathew J. Wedel and Darren Naish. ?2008. Head and neck posture in sauropod dinosaurs inferred from extant animals. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B XXX:YYY-ZZZ. doi: 10.abc.def
  (The PDF of this paper is available.)
  (Unofficial supplementary information is available.)