Lecture: 'Why Giraffes have such short necks'
Speaker:
Entry Fee
Members: Free
Visitors: £5.00
Date and Time
19:30 -
Location
Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, 16-18 Queen Square, Bath BA1 2HN
Lecture Description
The necks of sauropod dinosaurs were by far the longest of any animals, exceeding 15m. Four clades with very different cervical morphologies (mamenchisaurids, diplodocids, brachiosaurids, and titanosaurians) evolved ten-meter necks. By contrast, the neck of the giraffe, the longest of any extant animal, reaches only 2.4m. Those of theropods and pterosaurs attained at most 3m (Even among aquatic animals, the record is only 7m for elasmosaurs).
Four factors contributed to sauropod neck length: the sheer size of the animals, their distinctive vertebral architecture, air-sacs, and heads that merely gathered food without processing it. Cervical vertebral innovations included: extreme pneumatisation, which lightened the neck and increased bending resistance; elongate cervical ribs, which allowed hypaxial muscles to shift posteriorly; and, in several clades, bifid neural spines, which aided stability by shifting epaxial tension elements laterally. Bifid cervical neural spines evolved at least four times among sauropods and were never secondarily lost; they are otherwise found only in Rhea.
However, other aspects of sauropod cervical anatomy remain puzzling: low neural spines reduced the moment arm of epaxial tension members; ventrally displaced cervical ribs increased bulk; and epipophyses were not posteriorly elongated. These apparent flaws suggest our understanding of sauropod neck mechanics remains incomplete.