The only thing missing here ismention of the likelihood that these critters operated in swamps where theirmass was supported by water in the first place. Young ones could well have been quiteambulatory, but once settled into a home swamp with ready access to water weeds,movement becomes a luxury.
This critter was not a grasseater and that pretty well restricts it to the swamps. Obviously, the neck also floated as wellallowing the creature to vacuum out its immediate locale before moving on.
Curiously, traditions from Australia
Brachiosaurus and other dinosaurs like a vacuum cleaner
Brachiosaurus. Image credit: Wikia
(PhysOrg.com) -- In a recent study published in Biology Letters,Professor Graeme Ruxton from the University of Glasgow and Dr. David Wilkinsonfrom Liverpool John Moores University use mathematics and a comparison to theold 1950s style vacuum cleaners to explain the benefits of the very long necksseen in dinosaurs like the Brachiosaurus.
Dinosaurs like the Brachiosaurus and Diplodocus, who roamed theEarth from 200 hundred million years ago to their extinction 65 million yearsago, had extremely heavy bodies and very long necks. Debate between thescientific communities has been going on for years as to just why their neckswere so long and what its purpose was.
Many believed that these long necks would have been used to forage forhigh, hard to reach foliage, similar to that of a giraffe. However, otherpaleontologists believe that in order for these dinosaurs to raise theirnecks up high, the blood pressure required to get blood to the brain would havebeen too much to be feasible.
Looking at the basic body design of these dinosaurs, the team ofresearchers could best describe them as like the old style vacuum cleaners ofthe 1950s. With a large and cumbersome cylindrical body and a long reachinghose with a vacuum head, these vacuums worked in a similar manner to what theybelieve the dinosaurs did.
While these vacuums were generally placed in the center of a room andthe long hose extension used to vacuum and reach places without having to movethe central body, so did the dinosaurs. With their large bodies, the long necksallowed the dinosaurs to forage over more ground without having to expendenergy by moving their bodies.
Using mathematics to prove their theory, the researchers determinedthat the ideal neck length would have been around nine meters long. By keepingtheir body in one location and using their neck to forage, they were able tocut their energy output by as much as 80 percent.
More information: The energetics of low browsing in sauropods, BiologyLetters, Published online before print March 23, 2011, doi:10.1098/rsbl.2011.0116
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