Re: [dinosaur] Submerged sauropods

In whales the lungs are set up up under the roof of the ribcage for reasons that are obvious, and are about 2 m below water level with the back at the surface.
From what I know whales exhale while the lungs are still fairly deep and water pressure does the work, and inhale when horizontal to minimize the muscle work.  



-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Taylor <[email protected]>
To: Dann Pigdon <[email protected]>
Cc: dinosaur-l <[email protected]>
Sent: Thu, Oct 10, 2019 5:57 pm
Subject: Re: [dinosaur] Submerged sauropods

They would likely not have been able to inspire when their lungs were more than a meter below the surface of the water — at least, that's the conclusion from Kermack.
(I wonder how far below the surface the lungs of big whales are.)
-- Mike.

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 at 22:49, Dann Pigdon <[email protected]> wrote:


On Thu, Oct 10th, 2019 at 11:22 PM, Mike Taylor <[email protected]> wrote:

> Kermack's reasoning is rock-solid, and there is essentially no possibility
> of snorkelling sauropods. As Kermack himself noted in the closing words of
> his paper, "If the sauropods were, in fact, aquatic, they probably lived
> much the same sort of life as the present-day Hippopotamus, swimming and
> diving in the water, and walking along the bottom. To breathe, however,
> they would have needed to raise their body nearly, if not quite, to the
> surface."
>
> -- Mike.

It makes you wonder how elasmosaurids or tanystropheids managed to breathe. Would they have needed 
to surface completely with their bodies held horizontal? 

--
Dann Pigdon