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Post by Horridus on May 16, 2011 14:41:06 GMT
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Post by simon on May 16, 2011 18:37:39 GMT
Its intuitive that the long necks were a feeding adaptation useful for such large animals. Also note that many smaller sauropods (Nigersaurus, Amargasaurus) had comparatively short necks when compared to the 'big boys'.)
I agree with that blog post 100%.
Keep in mind that long necks certainly were not likely to be an adaptation re: predation as they made the animal more vulnerable. Obviously their value as a feeding adaptation outweighed the additional vulnerability of long necks.
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Post by Griffin on May 16, 2011 22:26:08 GMT
I feel the most common motives for evolution are resource consumption or mating.
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Post by sbell on May 16, 2011 22:33:11 GMT
I feel the most common motives for evolution are resource consumption or mating. And the two are not really separate anyway--evolution is driven pretty much by the desire to push genes into the next generation. Eating and mating are both rather important to that end (not being eaten being another one). And who are we to say, with our little sample sizes, that sauropod females were not selecting for males with the longest/bulkiest/swinging-est necks? Or that males didn't settle dominance by simple neck comparison, etc? Nature does lots of strange things that we don't necessarily consider--in a funny way, the use of modern analogues may actually hinder the creative process in some ways (look at dino stances when scientists used the only living biped with a long, strong tail!). But in this instance, it seems reasonable that their research indicates that giraffes (and sauropods) are long-necked first for food. |
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Post by arioch on May 17, 2011 6:11:53 GMT
Agreed. Keep the vulnerable head way above theropods reach could be another good reason too!  |
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Post by sid on May 17, 2011 8:20:37 GMT
Captain Obvious strikes again! ;D Of course sauropods and giraffes use their necks to reach their food... Who came with that silly theory about necks used for display anyway?  What the next study will be? Pterosaurs used their wings to (oh my gosh!) fly? Eh, it reminds me of that theory about ceratopsids' horns not used for fightin' off predators, but rather for display... Nonsense. |
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Post by Griffin on May 17, 2011 13:14:09 GMT
Ceratopsid horns: they probably were mostly for display and fighting each other more than anything else.
Look at modern animals that have horns. They they use them for display and fighting rivals much more often than fighting predators. Probably because fighting members of their own species is a much more common occurrence and therefore, would be the biggest driving force to evolve such adaptations.
I'm not saying they wouldn't use them against a predator either (because horned animals do if they have to). There is no reason why animals can't have multiple uses for one adaptation.
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Post by Horridus on May 17, 2011 16:49:43 GMT
Captain Obvious strikes again! ;D This kind of response is unwarranted. Just because something SEEMS obvious, or intuitive, doesn't make it so. This is a highly exhaustive technical paper and hey, it turns out that the researchers did reach 'the obvious' conclusion. But now that conclusion has a huge amount of evidence behind it that it didn't before. Anyway, remember Dinomoprh and sauropods not being able to raise their necks? |
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Post by sid on May 18, 2011 10:31:43 GMT
To Griffin: yeah, i know that modern horned animals use their horns for more than one purpose, but, as you also said, one of their purposes is to fend off predators... Oh well, I guess we're both right about it  To Horridus: sorry for the tone of my rant, but sometimes it seems that in paleontology they "waste" (maybe not the best term to describe it) their time writing papers over papers about something that could almost be seen at first sight, something vey obvious... I don't know, maybe it's just me, but that's the feeling i have about some studies  I remember too well the study about sauropods not able to raise their necks, something that i always considered complete nonsense ;D |
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Post by arioch on May 18, 2011 18:17:09 GMT
Well, I also remember Michael Chricton stating that they couldn´t raise their necks neither as they were primarily meant to balance the weight of the lower body and long tail. But its the same man who gave lizard tongues to Velociraptor, so.... ;D
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Post by Griffin on May 27, 2011 6:20:34 GMT
Sid: Also keep in mind how wacky some horn arrangements are on many ceratopsids and the sheer diversity of species there is within the group. I bet if their first use was defense they would look more uniform. But they don't. That, my friend is display...or at least it appears to be until proven otherwise.
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